Bulgaria Allegedly Corrupt Judge Stays Behind Bars

The appeal of the Bulgarian judge Petar Santirov to be released from prison was rejected by the court. Photo by BGNES

Former Judge Petar Santirov, who was arrested together with Bulgaria's ex defense minister over bribery charges stays in prison, a court has decided.

Sofia Appeal Court upheld Thursday the decision of the Sofia City Court to keep Santirov hebind bars.

During the court’s hearing, the prosecution presented a new two-volume set of evidence on the Santirov case.

The former Bulgarian judge was arrested in the beginning of April at his home in the Sofia neighborhood ‘Gotse Delchev’ in a police operation that also saw former Defense Minister Nikolay Tsonev and financial consultant Tencho Popov busted on bribery charges.

The three are allegedly guilty of bribing investigator, Petio Petrov, to forge evidence to lead to a positive outcome for Tsonev during his forthcoming court trail. The amount of the bribe was reported to have been EUR 60 000.

Petrov was working on the case of a BGN 120 M contract that Tsonev signed with a private company while he was Minister in 2008-2009.

The monitoring prosecutor pointed out that charges against other individuals might be pressed soon, adding he did not have any evidence of Petrov's involvement in the crime.

The defense council stated the investigators failed to honor Santirov's request to include in the case invoices and transcripts from his conversations with Petrov that would offer proof it was the latter who actively sought contacts.

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