Top Bulgarian Journalists Exposed as State Security Collaborators

Tosho Toshev (left), Editor-in-Chief of the Trud Daily, has been exposed as a former State Security collaborator. Photo by BGNES

The names of leading journalists from Bulgarian print media who were collaborators of the so called State Security (aka “DS”) – the secret police and intelligence of the former communist regime – were revealed Wednesday.

The so called “Files Commission”, which is in charge of investigating the past connection of public figures with the secret services of former communist regime before 1989, has checked a total of 328 journalists from 20 print media; 80 others who were born after 1973 are exempt from inspection based on the provisions of the Files Act.

The full list of Bulgarian print media journalists exposed as State Security collaborators is available HERE (in Bulgarian).

The most popular names exposed Tuesday include Tosho Toshev, the Editor-in-Chief of the Trud Daily, the largest Bulgarian newspaper, who was a collaborator from 1975 until 1990 under the pseudonym “Bor” (“Pine”). All materials in Toshev’s file are discovered to have been destroyed.

The Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Sedmichen Trud Weekly, Aneli Bacheva, was a collaborator between 1974 and 1989 under the name “Kalina”.

The former Editor-in-Chief of the 24 Chasa Daily, Valeri Naydenov, was also a former secret agent under the name “Sasho”. Sociologist Yuriy Aslanov, a political analyst who is the head of of the official sociological agency working currently with the Bulgarian Socialist Party, was a DS collaborator under the pseudonym “Viktor” starting 1985.

Two other journalists from the 24 Chasa Daily – Alexenia Dimitrova (agent “Vladimir”) and Pencho Kovachev (agent “Maxim”) also worked for the DS.

Journalist Ognyan Stefanov, the Editor-in-Chief of the news site Frognews who was severely beaten by unknown persons in September 2008, was a DS collaborator under the name “Akademik”.

Dimitri Ivanov and Svetoslav Terziev – analysts from the Sega Daily – are also revealed to have been DS agents.

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