Police Head in Bulgaria's Kardzhali Resigns Prompted by Minister

Stefan Angelov, head of the police in Kardzhali, has resigned after a prompting by the Interior Minister. Photo by BGNES

The Regional Interior Ministry Director in the southern Bulgarian city of Kardzhali, Commissar Stefan Angelov, has resigned.

Angelov is the first regional police head to resign after on Friday Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, said was dissatisfied with the work of all regional police directorates in the one month that he had been minister, and invited their heads to resign.

Angelov was the only name that Tsvetanov mentioned with regard to an inspection of a SAPARD funded project for BGN 77 M. The project is popularly known as "Water Mirror".

A week ago Tsvetanov ordered an inspection of the project in question, which envisaged enlarging the bed of the Arda River in order to make it navigable and to prevent floods from the nearby reservoir. According to Tsvetanov, Angelov told him the inspection produced no results because he was not given information on the funding of the project.

The three firms that have been selected for executing the Arda river project for BGN 77 M are reported to have been close to the former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev, and the notorious "ring of firms" around the ethnic Turkish party DPS, which traditionally dominates the Kardzhali region.

Upon resigning Sunday, Angelov said he had no comments, and that he was resigning as the Interior Minister had asked all regional police heads in the country, BGNES reported.