site.btaParliament Chair to Request SANS Report on Expulsion of Russian Church Priests

National Assembly Chairman Rosen Zhelyazkov will ask the State Agency for National Security (SANS) to present a report regarding its decision to expel the Rector of the Russian Orthodox Church in Sofia and two Belarusian priests on September 21. Zhelyazkov made this statement on Monday in response to a request by BSP for Bulgaria Floor Leader Korneliya Ninova for a hearing of SANS Chairman Plamen Tonchev.

Ninova urged Zhelyazkov to grant the request so the hearing could be included on the agenda of Monday's extraordinary plenary sitting. She said the report is being discussed in the public domain and "seems extremely mysterious". She also asked that Plamen Tonchev be questioned about the content of the report and explained that the priests in question have no diplomatic immunity and should be tried by a Bulgarian court.

Quoting Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov as saying that he was not involved in SANS's decision, Ninova commented it was very strange that he had distanced himself from the report.

In response, Zhelyazkov said that in a letter dated September 21, the SANS Chairman informed Parliament that he was on a business trip abroad between September 25 and 30, so he cannot be heard in plenary sittings during that period.

At the proposal of There Is Such a People (TISP), Grozdan Karadzhov MP of TISP was included in the Bulgarian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.