site.btaUPDATED Nevena Zartova Resigns as Administrative Head of Sofia Regional Prosecution Office

Nevena Zartova told BTA here on Wednesday that she has tendered her resignation as administrative head of the Sofia Regional Prosecution Office (SRPO). Initially, Zartova did not provide the reasons for this decision and specified that her motives were set out in her resignation.

Later on Wednesday, she told the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) that she did it to ensure a calm working environment for her colleagues. "There was enough buildup of administrative tension at the Sofia Regional Prosecution Office in recent months. There have been three complex inspections of the entire work of the Prosecution Office since the summer of last year. This makes the work of my colleagues and the administration extremely difficult. A fourth consecutive inspection, also complex, began on Friday," she said.

Also on Wednesday, the SJC reported that the SJC's Prosecutors Chamber, which performs the functions of the Supreme Prosecutorial Council, received a request from Borislav Georgiev, Ivan Stefanov, Mima Kutskova-Damyanova and Todor Kuyumdzhiev to be relieved of their positions as Deputy Administrative Head - Deputy District Prosecutor of the SRPO and to be reinstated as SRPO prosecutors, on the basis of the Judicial System Act.

In their request, the four magistrates have stated that they strongly distance themselves from Zartova's actions and support the efforts of acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov to reform Bulgaria's prosecution service.

As to her deputies, Zartova told BNT that they had made all decisions together as a team after discussion. "There has never been any conflict, and there still is not," she added.

In her televised interview, she also commented on the high-profile murder case of Martin "the Notary" Bozhanov. "I found out about Martin Bozhanov from the video published by the Anti-Corruption Fund in 2021," Zartova said, adding that no case files related to him have been seized. She noted that 17 case files had been initiated against Martin Bozhanov, but all of them were dropped or dismissed. Zartova explained that they were initiated in the period between 1998 and 2018, the most recent ones being from 2020 and 2021, when she served as Administrative Head of the Sofia Regional Prosecution Office.

Sarafov recommended to the Supreme Prosecutorial Council to have Svetlana Mitova, prosecutor at the Supreme Prosecution Office, appointed as the acting administrative head of the SRPO, until a replacement is selected.

The SRPO is the prosecution service with the largest caseload in the country. In order to ensure effective management of its activities until a procedure for the selection of an administrative head is announced and the head takes office, it must be led by a prosecutor with professional experience and authority, Sarafov said in his proposal.

Mitova has been working in the legal system for more than 26 years. Since 2020, she has been a prosecutor in the Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office. She has been recognized for high professionalism.

Martin Bozhanov was shot dead in a gated complex in a Sofia suburb on the evening of January 31. According to media reports, he was a large-scale fixer of people's problems with the judiciary. He has been implicated in building a network of connections with prosecutors and judges whom he allegedly bribed, threatened, blackmailed or otherwise pressured to treat his "clients" favourably.