Bulgarian Court Appoints 1st State Lawyer in High-profile Case

Mario Nikolov is charged with draining a total of EUR 7.5 M from SAPARD. Photo by BGNES

The Sofia City Court appointed Thursday State lawyers for all defendants in the high-profile SAPARD draining case.

Mario Nikolov, his wife Mariyana, Radmil Petrov, Petya Hadzhiivanova, Anna Sharkova, Grigor Glavev, Valentin Angelov, and Lazarina Georgieva are charged with draining a total of EUR 7.5 M from the EU pre-accession program for agriculture.

This is the first case where amendments of the Penal Code, concerning the State appointing attorneys when those hired by the defendants are absent, were applied. The reason was Nikolov's attorney's failure to appear, citing involvement in another case in the Black Sea city of Burgas. The judge fined the lawyer BGN 500 and ruled to appoint State attorneys for the next 5 trial dates between June 17 and 23.

Mario Nikolov, who cried in the courtroom one day ago, appeared calm and in a good mood Thursday.

On March 29, the same Court sentenced Nikolov to 10 years behind bars and his wife, Mariana, to 8 years in another notorious SAPARD case. The two were charged, along with Lyudmil Stoykov, with laundering the money drained from SAPARD. Stoykov was acquitted by the Court.

The trail against Nikolov and another businessman, Lyudmil Stoykov, who are known as sponsors of the election campaign of Socialist President Parvanov, was provoked by revelations of the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF, which spoke of a “Nikolov-Stoykov Group”.

According to OLAF, a group of 60 Bulgarian, foreign and offshore organization that had links with the previous government, led by Socialist Sergey Stanishev, had participated in tax fraud and money laundering.

Both Nikolov and Stoykov are known for being close to the Bulgarian Socialist Party; however, unlike Nikolov, Stoykov was acquitted by the Bulgarian court on the SAPARD draining charges.

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