site.btaUPDATED MRF Floor Leader Urges Competent Authorities to Report on Corruption in Presidential Institution

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) floor leader Delyan Peevski said in a press release on Monday that he has referred to the Prosecutor General, the Secretary General of the Interior Ministry and the heads of the State Agency for National Security and the counter-corruption commission signals related to corruption in the presidential institution.

He wants to know why authorities do not undertake or disclose the data on investigations and cases of high public sensitivity related to the presidential administration, despite numerous media reports and publicly disclosed alerts.

According to Peevski, the public should not remain suspicious of an "institutional umbrella" or a cover-up of violations related to abuse of power or corrupt practices, because it is the only way for the State to prove its Euro-Atlantic values and principles.

In a press release from January 23, Peevski said that: "the President should stop pursuing comfort and come out and give answers. I think that the spotlight should be on the Presidency, this dark institution brimming with cash". The MRF floor leader came with a strong reaction to President Rumen Radev's challenge of the constitutionality of the election of two new Constitutional Court judges.

President: „Staged media craze“

Asked to comment Peevski’s attacks against him and the subsequent announcements for checks by the prosecution service and the Interior Ministry, President Radev called these „a staged media craze“ and referred to the MRF floor leader as „Mr Magnitsky“.

In 2021, Peevski was designated by the US under the Global Magnitsky Act as an oligarch who "has regularly engaged in corruption, using influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society." The MP is challenging the designation in a US court. His lawyers argue that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by their client.

"Domesticating the Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria leaders may give hope to someone that they can approach the presidential institution in the same way, but this will not happen," said the President.

Radev urged the relevant authorities to bring out all information about alerts on high-profile cases that have been shelved in recent years, if there are any. "When we talk about corruption, I call on these authorities to bring out all the alerts, files and cases involving the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company, Bulgartabac, Corporate Commercial Bank, Bulgarian Development Bank, dams, highways, customs, the National Railway Construction Company, Dunarit, Emko, the poisoning of [Emilian] Gebrev, about ‘front’ men - owners of properties, businesses, hotels in Bulgaria and abroad, and about offshore companies," Radev further said, stressing that the public expects answers to a lot of questions.

Peevski was later quoted in a press release by the MRF as saying that "Mr. Cash is acting like the ultimate institution in the country. His dictatorship is over and will never happen again", apparently referring to President Radev and his past caretaker governments.

Commenting on Radev's remarks about the need for a new political alternative, Peevski said: "The only great thing is that he (Radev) will create a party. I will be waiting for him. The gauntlet has been thrown. I accept it. We want a battle on the political stage. He can't be just sitting in his comfortable presidential chair, abuse the (presidential) institution and hide behind his full immunity". 

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Later on Monday, following Peevski’s statement, the administrative head of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office, Iliana Kirilova, told reporters that the prosecuting magistracy is looking into the alleged involvement of Rumen Radev's Home Policy Secretary Nikolai Koprinkov and former National Social Security Institute head Sotir Ushev in the case. She added that the case has now been assigned to a supervising prosecutor and it is possible that Peevski will be summoned for questioning. Kirilova also noted that the prosecuting magistracy has been alerted by former caretaker prime minister Galab Donev that the Employment Agency had abused EU money under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. She pointed out that the alert was submitted to the European Public Prosecutor's Office and involves Ushev and Koprinkov’s names. Donev's alert is not against advisers to the president, she added.

Commenting on Rumen Radev’s statement that Bulgarians expect a real political alternative to oppose the mutual whitewashing and indulgence of corruption scandals, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov recalled that Bulgarian security services have a blind spot for corruption, voicing hope that the investigations will be concluded, and the truth will be brought to surface. In his words, everything else is just rumours and allegations which, when left unproven, only bring the institutions down. "By the way, the presidency has been doing this for quite some time," Denkov said.

Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov said that the Interior Ministry is yet to ascertain whether there were any financial malpractices in the presidency, acting to its own initiative following media articles. By order of Interior Ministry Secretary General Zhivko Kotsev, information has been requested from absolutely all structures of the ministry to investigate whether there have been alerts related to the case.