“The Record Holder: The People’s Representative on Trial for Influence Peddling and Bribery, 11 Years Later”

• The People’s Representative is on trial for influence peddling and bribery
• The case is at first instance 11 years after the arrest

For the seventh time, the prosecutor’s office has submitted a request to the parliament to remove Dimitar Avramov’s immunity – this is the only way the case against him for bribery and trading in influence can continue, the state prosecution announced on Tuesday.

Avramov became the record holder in this procedure, a check by “24 Chasa” showed. His immunity as a representative of the people was requested and removed 7 times, as many times as he was sworn in as a deputy, which is unprecedented in the recent history of the judicial system and the parliament.

Dimitar Avramov was arrested on July 17, 2012 with marked money, which he wanted from the grain producer Svetoslav Ilchovski to solve problems for him in the local regional agricultural commission.

11 years later, the case against Avramov has not ended and is still in the first instance. When he was arrested in the summer of 2012, Avramov was a GERB deputy. Then the prosecutor’s office first requested his immunity so that he could be investigated.

In 2017, the businessman from Montana again gained immunity, this time as the leader of the DPS list for the district. So he became a deputy again and the chief prosecutor, then Sotir Tsatsarov, had to submit a request for his immunity. A vote did not take place because Avramov himself renounced the protection of the law. At that time, his case was already in the Sofia City Court. After the end of the 44th National Assembly Avramov invariably entered the parliament as the leader of the DPS for the Montana region and in the following national assemblies, which, although short, required a procedure to remove his immunity in order for the case to continue.

Despite the problems with justice, the record holder for waivers of immunity achieved excellent results in the elections in Montana and the district as the leader of the lists. In 2017, when he returned to parliament as leader of the DPS, he won 84,011 votes, or 12%. In the last vote on April 2, DPS is now the second political force with 20% and nearly 10,000 votes in the district. In the previous elections in October 2022, there was an even better result – 23% and 11 thousand votes.

Dimitar Avramov and his family are respected in Montana because of the family’s large-scale business with poultry farming and land lease. As an MP in his first term, he was fined for a conflict of interest, because together with his colleague Stoyan Gyuzelev, they tried to pass a law in favor of renters, as they are. They were sentenced to BGN 5,000 each in July 2011. Exactly a year later, Avramov was arrested for the bribe he demanded from Svetoslav Ilcovski, who made a splash in 2021 with his appearances in the audit committee of Maya Manolova.

During an action by the prosecutor’s office, GDBOP and DANS, Avramov was arrested with marked BGN 50,000, part of the 100,000 he asked Ilcovski for the service, plus several thousand acres of land. Together with Avramov, the municipal councilor from Pleven, Metodi Petkov, was also arrested, who is still under trial together with the deputy. Petkov is in prison for another case – in 2016, he brutally beat a man because he allowed himself to fish in a dam owned by the municipal councilor. He even forced him to eat the live catch. Petkov was released in 2021 and was included in a non-electable place in the DPS lists for the elections in November of that year. About the trend criminally manifested to be included in the lists Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev also warned behind the scenes on April 3 of this year. And Petkov’s son – Vasil, was a candidate in the vote on April 2 as third for Pleven district.

The bribery case in the Sofia City Court ended in 2017 with an acquittal for Avramov, but the second instance returned him to the prosecutor’s office. It was then brought back to the Special Criminal Court when the cases against high-ranking people in the state were transferred there. After the closure, he returned to the Sofia City Court. The case started for the second time in April 2019 and there were 42 hearings on it, a check by “24 Hours” showed. It was last stopped by a decision of April 20 of this year. because of Avramov’s immunity, but it is expected to continue after his next refusal.

In addition to him and Petkov, as of 2019, lawyer Vladimir Chernev has been charged as an intermediary for the bribe. He had contracts with Avramov and Ilchovski.

Dimitar Avramov is not the only deputy from the 49th National Assembly to whom the Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev will ask for immunity. On Monday, documents were submitted for Radostin Vasilev from the PP-DB group because of an investigation against him for blackmailing his former colleague from ITN Hristinka Ivanova to break away from the group in the 47th National Assembly.

Immunity is expected to be requested for the third time for Yusein Veisalov from the DPS, who is on trial for causing the death of a cyclist in October 2019, after he violated traffic rules on a road between two Gabrovo villages.