Race for Sofia Appellate Prosecutor Draws Candidates with Tarnished Records

Bulgaria's Supreme Judicial Council (VSS) is to vote Thursday on the questionable applications for Sofia Appellate Prosecutor. Photo by BGNES

Thursday's session of Bulgaria's Supreme Judicial Council (VSS) is to include a vote on the appointment of new Sofia Appellate Prosecutor.

Three applicants have filed their documents for the post - Vicho Vichev, current holder of the office,Ventsislav Andreev, Prosecutor at the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office and Slavcho Nenkov who works at the Sofia Appellate Prosecutor's Office.

Vichev, who is running for a second term in office, is under investigation for document fraud, according to news portal dnevnik.bg.

While Vichev was Sofia Regional Prosecutor, he had a relationship with a prosecutor from the Sofia Regional Prosecutor's Office.

The woman got pregnant and had a boy to whom Vichev refused to acknowledge paternity.

A DNA test identified him as the child's father, which he contested by producing a document that he had undergone a vasectomy.

The first-instance court decided the case on the basis of the evidence of sterilization surgery, but the ruling was appealed.

At the same time, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office of Cassation received a tip-off and opened proceedings against Vichev for document fraud.

Ventsislav Andreev is tipped as a close friend of judge Veneta Markovska from the Supreme Administrative Court (VAS).

In 2010, Andreev was assigned overseeing prosecutor on a case against a family friend of Markovska, Georgi Georgiev, who had been arrested for hooliganism for resisting a routine check by the traffic police and assaulting an officer.

Under Bulgarian legislation, acts of hooliganism are investigated by the respective regional prosecutor's office rather than the higher-instance prosecuting authority, which ought to tackle grave crime.

Andreev also oversaw the trial against highway police officer Todor Dzhurov, who was arrested with over 80 kg of amphetamines in end-November 2007 together with his cousin Stoyan Stoychev, owner of the notorious Monterey restaurant.

No charges were brought against Stoychev, despite the fact that a search of his home yielded packaging foil that had traces of amphetamines with identical compounds to the drugs seized from Dzhurov's car.

Andreev approved an agreement under which Dzhurov received a penalty way below the statutory minimum.

He was also in charge of the trial against former gambling boss Valter Papazki, which the court returned once over omissions in the indictment.

Apart from that, on November 16 the Sofia District Prosecutor's Office pressed charges against Andreev's 21-year-old son, Biser, over vehicular manslaughter resulting in the death of more than once person and a breach of the Road Traffic Act.

The car crash occured on August 04 on the Bulgaria Blvd in Sofia.

One of the drivers was Biser Andreev, the other one was not officially charged.

The case was referred to the Sofia District Prosecutor's Office due to the fact that Ventsislav Andreev, Biser's father, works at the division of the Sofia Regional Prosecutor's Office tackling traffic crime.

The trial was later redirected to the Black Sea city of Varna at the order of Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev, who argued that it was "unnatural and abnormal" for the case to be tried in Sofia, given that Venstislav Andreev works there.

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