/ world today news/ The head of the National Security Service (NSS) Angel Antonov has resigned, “Voices” learned. Formally, his request to leave, submitted on Monday evening, is motivated by switching to another job. However, the real reason is a prosecutor’s investigation into abuses committed by him. A few days ago, it became known that the Military District Prosecutor’s Office had started an investigation into several reports filed by NSO officers.
The reports claim that Antonov hunted at the Krichim hunting farm, and his trips there were disguised as business trips. There were also violations in the fleet – a relative of Antonov was driving a car provided to the NSO for a test drive, “Trud” wrote.
Last year, the NSO was involved in the scandal with the jeeps of the state forestry farms, which, instead of being used for VIP hunting tourism, were used by the NSO for the political elite. What’s more, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov personally drove one of them. In recent years, the practice of the Prime Minister driving a car to the office was established in the NSO – something that is contrary to all norms for the work of the NSO.
Antonov, who has a long career in the Ministry of the Interior, was appointed to the post by President Rosen Plevneliev at the suggestion of the government in 2014.
Antonov received general epaulettes during Plevneliev’s term in a flawed procedure, by virtue of a decree of the Council of Ministers, which equated police positions to military ranks. An important detail here is that the decree applies to reservists from the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Service, which Antonov was not at that time. However, Antonov was enlisted as a reservist by virtue of a text of the Defense Act that applies only to wartime.
Since the administrations of the Ministry of Defense and the President tried to appoint him at all costs, they did not take into account that Antonov would receive a military rank, which is one step higher than that required for the head of the NSO. This situation ran afoul of the Defense Law, which required three months after Antonov’s appointment that President Rosen Plevneliev amend another decree setting military rank requirements for the individual services. Thus Antonov was officially “nailed” for the position.
Angel Antonov is a former director of two main directorates in the Ministry of the Interior during the time of GERB. His closeness with Borisov’s right-hand man – Tsvetan Tsvetanov, at that time the interior minister, is known.
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