site.btaFormer PM Petkov Indicted over 2022 Detention of Three Ranking GERB Members

The Sofia City Prosecution Office has submitted to the Sofia City Court an indictment against Kiril Petkov MP of the 51st National Assembly under a pre-trial proceeding, the prosecution service said in a press release on Friday.

Petkov has been indicted on charges of exceeding his authority when, in the City of Sofia on March 17, 2022, in his capacity as prime minister, he ordered a chief and a deputy chief of an Investigation and Investigation Methodological Guidance Division at the National Police General Directorate (NPGD), as well as a chief investigating police officer at the division, to take actions at variance with the law.

According to the indictment, Petkov directed the NPGD Director and their subordinate police authorities to detain for 24 hours, under the Ministry of Interior Act, B.B., Vl.G. and S.A., "for the purpose of inflicting on the three damage consisting in impairing their image and tarnishing their good name and, thereby, the State incurred significant harmful consequences in terms of a tarnished prestige of the executive branch of government," the press release says.

More than 40 persons have been questioned in a witness capacity within the pre-trial proceeding, video tapes have been included in the case records, and other evidence has been collected, too.

On January 10, before entering the prosecution office to be charged, Petkov denied any wrongdoing and argued that he was subject to a political attack.

Bulgaria's former prime minister and leader of GERB (then the largest opposition party) Boyko Borissov, former finance minister Vladislav Goranov, and public relations advisor Sevdelina Arnaudova were arrested on March 17, 2022. The Interior Ministry then said that the operation was part of an extortion investigation prompted by probes by the European Public Prosecutor's Office. The three were released after 24 hours without pressing charges.

In April 2022, the Sofia Regional Court (SRC) ruled that authorities had failed to collect "a single good piece of evidence of the accused parties' complicity in the alleged crime." In August 2022, the Sofia Administrative Court confirmed the SRC's judgment according to which Borissov, Goranov, and Arnaudova had been arrested illegally.