Senior Bulgarian Officials Exposed as Former Agents

The chair of the so-called Files Commission, Evtim Kostadinov. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's commission overseeing secret records has announced the names of more agents of the former Communist State Security, who headed the political cabinets of prime ministers, deputy prime ministers and ministers.

On Wednesday, the so-called Files Commission, which is an independent body digging into the records of the communist regime's State Security (DS), revealed 17 names of people, who were collaborators or agents to the former Communist State Security, and who worked in the political cabinets.

The revealed names include: Gancho Ganev, head of the cabinet of the foreign minister between 2007 and 2009; Dragovest Goranov, head of the spokesperson directorate at the Foreign Ministry between 2008 and 2010 and spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry in 2010; Ivan Palchev, who headed the cabinet of the Deputy PM Emel Etem in 2009; Johanna Razpopova, head of the cabinet of the justice minister since 2009; Orlin Ivanov, head of the cabinet of the defense minister from 2008 to 2009; Silviya Tomova, head of the cabinet of the health minister since 2010; and Stefan Gunchev, head of the cabinet of the minister on regional development between 2005 and 2009.

A total of 229 people have been checked. However, the Ministry on Regional Development has not sent all necessary data and the checks there will continue.

In December 2010, the commission announced that 192 Bulgarian Foreign Ministry employees have had ties with the former communist State Security.

Among those 192, 33 are diplomats currently working abroad. These include Ambassadors, Consuls and Deputy Directors of diplomatic missions in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, the UN (New York and Geneva), Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Russia, China, Sweden, Romania, Norway, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria, Egypt, Bosnia, Greece, the Vatican,Slovakia, Albania, Georgia, Armenia and Venezuela are among those exposed as former Bulgarian State Security's collaborators.

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