site.btaToday's Observances: July 9

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1992: Case No. 3 (aka "Secret Weapons Assistance Case") is instituted by Prosecutor General's Office against former head of State Todor Zhivkov and another 21 high-ranking communist functionaries and senior government officials. They are charged with embezzling 243,537,000 unredenominated leva's worth of weapons, ammunition, wheat and oil provided in assistance to terrorist regimes and sister Communist parties in Third World, including Nicaragua, Cuba, Kampuchea, Afghanistan, Angola and South Yemen, between 1986 and 1990. Case dismissed by Sofia City Prosecution Office on February 4, 2000 (dismissal confirmed by Sofia Appellate Prosecution Office on February 16, 2000).

1998: 38th National Assembly passes new Measures against Money Laundering Act.

2001: 5,950-ha Kalimok-Brushlen Locality (comprising seven Bulgarian Danube islands in Slivo Pole and Tutrakan municipalities) is designated protected area as habitat of over 200 bird species, of which 164 covered by European and World conservation conventions, 43 included in Bulgaria's Red Data Book, and 130 protected under Nature Protection Act.