Bulgaria

Former Bulgarian Chief Prosecutor Nikola Filchev has denied the claims that he had been close with Aleksei Petrov, the ex secret agent who was busted in the “Octopus” police operation.

Filchev (Chief Prosecutor in 1999-2006), who is reported to be summoned for interrogation over the Octopus case, has denied the allegations that he was the person who paved the way for Aleksei Petrov’s appointment to Bulgaria’s secret services.

Petrov was appointed to the National Security Service in 1999 by then Interior Minister Emanuil Yordanov, at the proposal of then head of the counter-intelligence Atanas Atanasov, Filchev told Vseki Den in an interview.

He put the blame for the entire affair on former PM Ivan Kostov (1997-2001) saying Kostov and his aides Atanasov and Yordanov were targeting him because back in the days he exposed violations committed by the former Prime Minister with privatization deals for over BGN 30 B.

Kostov and Atanasov are currently MPs from the right-wing Blue Coalition which supports the Borisov government. Earlier on Monday, Atanasov demanded that the former Chief Prosecutor – who was also appointed by the Kostov government – should be arrested and tried for his connections to Aleksei Petrov.

“The Chief Prosecutor does not appoint the officers of the National Security Service. They are appointed by the Interior Minister at the proposal of the Director of the Service. You can check in the NSS archives when Aleksei Petrov was appointed as intelligence officer,” Filchev declared while denying explicitly that he asked Yordanov or Atanasov to approve Petrov’s appointment.

“This is a typical situation in which they put their blame on me. I have never been in such close relations with this stinky gnome Atanasov or with that opera singer Emanuil Yordanov in order to ask them for anything. I have never asked them for anything – they are not on my rank, nor am I close with them,” Filchev declared.

He pointed out his names was involved in the Octopus scandal by Ivan Kostov who he called an “old plotter.”

Filchev did make it clear that he would willingly be interrogated if summoned because he had not committed anything wrong.

Source: Novinite.com – Sofia News Agency