Bulgaria Chief Prosecutor Vows Charges against 'Untouchable' Gangsters

Bulgaria's Chief Prosecutor Velchev has vowed to target "untouchable" gangsters. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev has promised that most of the some 300 top Bulgarian gangsters would be facing charges by the end of 2010.

Velchev has referred to these top leaders of Bulgarian organized crime groups as “the untouchable”, speaking before foreign journalists in Sofia, as cited by the BNR.

“We have already stood up against people who seemed untouchable in the last 20 years. We are going to bring to an end the trend of merging organized crime and state,” Velchev declared.

The Chief Prosecutor warned, however, that getting sentences for the “untouchable” gangsters would not be easy. “Their connections with politicians and people at various positions in the state and with policemen are so high-level that they always surprise us,” he said.

“We cannot arrest all them because they are corrupt, and thank God, because otherwise we would have not enough space to jail them in,” Velchev is quoted as saying.

He has suggested the setting up of special groups of prosecutors and judges to try suspects of certain more specific crimes, and faster and simpler judicial procedures.

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