Bulgarian FinMin Condemns Illegal Wiretapping

Illegal wiretapping should not be practiced in a democratic state, Bulgaria's Finance Minister Simeon Djankov declared on Wednesday.

He stated that in his interview for the Bulgarian private channel bTV, referring to the recently erupted spying scandal, which involved recorded conversation between high officials, including himself, leaking to the public media.

" As it turns out from all these conversations, [the Head of the Bulgarian Customs Agency] Vanyo Tanov has refused to make any political appointments," Djankov pointed out.

He stated he did not know who recorded the conversations, but expressed his hope that the Prosecutor's Office wwill find that out in the course of the next couple of days.

Last week's "spying" scandal was triggered by three tapes of discrediting conversations between the Director of the Customs Agnecy, Vanyo Tanov, and his superiors – Simeon Dajnkov and Deputy Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov.

The tapes were released at a news conference last Wednesday by the Galeria weekly, a paper believed to be the mouthpiece of Aleksei Petrov, former special agent of the State National Security Agency DANS, (currently under house arrest), who has been investigated on organized crime charges since his arrest in the much advertised "Operation Octopus" in February 2010.

On Monday, the scandal expanded further to involve tapes of discrediting conversations between the Customs Head and key Members of the Parliament from the ruling centrist Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party.

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