Special prosecutors requested full access to all who entered through the 4 entrances of the Council of Ministers?

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COUNCIL OF MINISTERS

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All visitors – Bulgarian and foreign citizens, who had access to the Council of Ministers in January, February and March 2022, must be described and handed over to the special prosecutor’s office.

On Wednesday evening, the National Security Service received a letter from the special prosecution that the data are necessary on the occasion of the preliminary proceedings, “24 Chasa” has learned.

To confirm this unofficial information, we sought the Council of Ministers, the National Security Service and the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office.

According to our source, the requested information refers to the 4 entrances of the Council of Ministers – the central and the official ones.

Until recently, it was common practice for visitors to the government building to provide their ID card and to record its data in a special notebook with the time of entry and exit. Then they and their belongings go through a scanner and only then do they get access to the office or the hall where a certain meeting is scheduled.

Only the official delegations are outside this regime, but in the minutes of the Council of Ministers their composition is described in detail with names, positions and possibly contacts. MPs also have free access.

“24 Chasa” sought official confirmation of this inspection and the reason for it from the government administration, the special prosecutor’s office and the NSO.

The Specialized Prosecutor’s Office assured us that later today we will receive an answer to the question of whether they requested the data and in what connection.

The NSO did not confirm the information. However, the State Security Service is adamant that they provide assistance to the institutions and, upon request, provide information related to their powers and competencies, if available.

According to the regulations, as well as the internal rules, the employees of the NSO only certify the identity of the entrants and carry out the obligatory according to the security rules check whether the person does not import dangerous goods. There is no register – neither on paper nor on electronic media, which stores information on who enters and leaves the building, as there is no legal basis to maintain one.

The Council of Ministers also received our question, but remained silent until this hour. After 1 pm, the prime minister will be in Blagoevgrad, where “24 hours” will also ask the question.

It is possible that the special prosecutor’s office will request the data because of other investigations that have already begun.

Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov was arrested on March 17th after testifying by the current prime minister.

Kiril Petkov announced that he personally did this in his office in the Council of Ministers hours before the Ministry of Interior appeared in front of the home of the GERB leader in Bankya. This is the day when the regular session of the government was surprisingly canceled, and the head of the European Prosecutor’s Office Laura Coveschi was in Sofia. From the first hours of Borissov’s arrest, there has been a debate over whether he was legal and that GERB is adamant that this is a political showdown with an opposition leader.

In the meantime, two more parallel scandals broke out with the presence of Bulgarians from the European Prosecutor’s Office, who were in Kiril Petkov’s office that day. According to publications, they or other colleagues – also Bulgarian prosecutors in Luxembourg, questioned via Skype the businessman who fled to Dubai with 18 charges Vasil Bozhkov. In the first hours of Borissov’s arrest, the Ministry of Interior announced and then deleted that the “urgency” action was related to the 120 signals announced in Sofia for misuse of European funds from Bulgaria. After a correction, it was clarified that these are the accusations of Bozhkov from 2 years ago regarding the National Lottery.

A few days ago, the Bulgarian special prosecutor’s office announced that it would also interrogate Bozhkov remotely and asked for assistance from the United Arab Emirates.

The second plot, on which it is possible to request access to visitors in the Council of Ministers, is the inspection requested by the owner of INSA Oil Georgi Samuilov from the prosecutor’s office for pressure on him by Deputy Prime Minister Asen Vassilev. In a signal, the Plovdiv businessman described a meeting on fuel prices on January 5, 2022 of the Petroleum Association in the Council of Ministers, after which the Minister of Finance held a personal conversation with him and began massive inspections of Samuilov’s companies.

Later, the Petroleum Association itself clarified that the meeting in question, described in the signal to the Prosecutor General, was in the Prime Minister’s Office of Kiril Petkov, but neither Asen Vassilev nor Georgi Samuilov were present. A new batch of accusations followed between the businessman and the deputy prime minister.

Both the third and the fourth plot may be behind the preliminary proceedings of the special prosecutor’s office, but it is still not clear what exactly provoked her interest in the four entrances to the Council of Ministers.

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