site.btaInterior Minister Demerdzhiev: Investigating Chief and Prosecutor General Sarafov’s Exit Shows Backers Lost Influence

The removal of Borislav Sarafov as acting Prosecutor General and National Investigative Service Director shows his backers have lost influence, Minister of Interior Ivan Demerdzhiev said on Sunday.

On May 27, the Supreme Judicial Council accepted Sarafov’s resignation as director of the National Investigation Service and deputy to the Prosecutor General.

Demerdzhiev said this was largely due to Progressive Bulgaria’s clear election victory and its firm pledge that this model would not be tolerated and would be dismantled.

Sarafov’s withdrawal is not reform, Demerdzhiev said. Reform will come when the Prosecution Service’s way of working changes, and when the law and the pursuit of justice become central to its work, he added.

Demerdzhiev said that Petyo "the Euro" Petrov is being actively sought. “The way the Prosecution Service is approaching these cases is incomprehensible to me, because they cannot be closed. I guarantee that the page has not been closed. At the Ministry of Interior, we will do everything necessary to get to the truth, and I appeal to the Prosecution Service: if it wants to restore at least part of its authority and public trust, it should not close the page before it has been read,” he said.

Regarding the detention of Vasil Mihaylov, known as “the prosecutor’s son”, Demerdzhiev said everything necessary had been done and that the process had been long and complex. There had also been assistance from the State Agency for National Security (SANS), he added.

Demerdzhiev said the support Mihaylov had received had not come from Ministry of Interior staff. “We suspect there was a leak of information in certain situations, and we are checking them. The people who mainly helped him were not people from the system. They were other people, but their actions were quite professional,” he said.