Bulgaria Committee 'Votes to Strip' MP of Immunity over Prosecution Demands

Volen Siderov, leader of Bulgaria's Ataka party, speaking from Parliament's rostrum. Photo by BGNES

A Parliament committee in Bulgaria has moved to lift the immunity of Volen Siderov, the leader of Ataka party, upon the request of the country's Chief Prosecutor.

Behind closed doors, an interim committee set up hours earlier moved to approve the step which will allow Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov to press new hooliganism charges on Siderov, the website Offnews.bg quotes MP Antoni Trenchev as saying.

Tsatsarov's request also concerns Desislav Chukolov, another Ataka MP.

The decision has not been officially confirmed, but will be made public on Thursday, when it will be submitted to Parliament and later discussed at a plenary session.

A vote is likely next week, a lawmaker from the main ruling GERB party has said.

Siderov later described the committee as "a tribunal, not a commission".

He told reporters that what fellow MPs were doing "at the moment is extremely dangerous."

On Tuesday, he categorically declined to give up his immunity on his own.

In an earlier development, Parliament Speaker Tsetska Tsacheva said, hours after a late-night fracas involving Siderov, said Parliament was considering changes to the constitution that would partly lift immunity from criminal prosecution.

Hooliganism charges and Tsatsarov's intention to order the arrest of Siderov refer to a similar development two days earlier.

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