Bulgarian Special Police to Wear Cameras during Ops

The Head of the Sofia Directorate of the Interior, Commissar, Valeri Yordanov, was reprimanded over allowing police brutality in an operation to counter contraband. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

Special cameras will be mounted on the helmets of the group for special police operations at the Sofia Directorate of the Interior Ministry, SDVR.

The information was reported Thursday by SDVR Deputy Chief, Ivaylo Spiridonov, at his hearing with the temporary parliamentary committee probing alleged police violence in the case of the Nachkovi family from the capital's suburb of Mirovyane.

Towards the end of January, Malina and Petar Nachkovi complained of police brutality and reported they have been severely beaten and, with no sound motivation, detained by police, who after that went on to violently break in and search their home only to discover five boxes of cigarettes without excise labels.

Five out of the twelve special police task force at SDVR took part in the operation.

Spiridonov explained that the cameras will record all operations and will be used as prevention to protect both the police and the suspects, adding the Directorate was in the process of choosing appropriate equipment.

He further informed that all police officers who planned the operation against Nachkovi are subjects to an internal probe since there were suspicions that one or several of them leaked secret information to the family. After a tipoff, the police had been certain they will find a large amount of contraband cigarettes in the house, but the raid ended being fruitless.

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