site.btaVazrazhdane Leader Alerts Prosecutors about Alleged High Treason Committed by GERB Leader Borissov

The Vazrazhdane party leader Kostadin Kostadinov said on Tuesday that he had submitted an alert to the prosecution service in connection with suspicion that GERB leader and former prime minister Boyko Borissov committed high treason.

The alert was prompted by a recent item in The Wall Street Journal, according to which Borissov, described as "still Bulgaria's most powerful man," approached Donald Trump Jr. during his visit to Bulgaria in April, mentioning a potential sale of a stake in the Balkan Stream (part of TurkStream) and other Bulgarian assets to the US in exchange for relief from US Magnitsky Act sanctions for some of his "close allies".

"We saw that Borissov actually confirmed almost everything in the alert," Kostadinov told a BTA-hosted news conference on Tuesday. "A Bulgarian politician, who chairs the party holding the [cabinet-forming] mandate, takes the liberty of trading Bulgarian and foreign property in exchange of his personal partisan interest," the Vazrazhdane leader argued. "This is called power haggling, trading in influence, and is criminalized, and when committed with foreigners, it constitutes high treason," he added.

"I heard Borissov's explanations, they came in a rather exotic way, on the sidewalk in front of his house, answering the questions of a former politician and former journalist," Kostadinov said. He was referring to an interview that the GERB leader gave on Monday to TV host and ex-MEP Nikolay Barekov, in which he admitted lobbying for a removal of the Magnitsky sanctions imposed on his onetime finance minister Vladislav Goranov but denied mentioning Delyan Peevski (also a Magnitsky designee) in his talks with Trump Jr. Peevski, a leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms - New Beginning, backs the incumbent GERB-led minority government even though his party is nominally not part of the ruling coalition.

Kostadinov sees Borissov's interview as "an indication that something needed to be urgently explained." "This type of sidewalk Q&As with convenient questions shows a guilty conscience," he commented. "In what capacity does he [Borissov] dispose of the gas pipeline which constitutes public state property," the Vazrazhdane leader asked.

"We do not trust Boyko Borissov, which is why I regard my alert to the prosecution service as well-founded," he said further, adding that he does not harbour illusions that the alert will be followed up.

Kostadinov specified that he submitted the alert to the Sofia City Prosecution Office by the end of the day on Monday "because, as is well known, we don't have a prosecutor general at this point in time. "[Borislav] Sarafov is currently usurping the office of prosecutor general, and the big question here is who or rather which institution will kick him out," the Vazrazhdane leader added.