Prosecutors Change Place of Hearing of Bulgaria's Ex Interior Min Last Minute

Former Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov (R) and his lawyer, Menko Menkov (L), appeared at the Specialized Prosecutor's Office appeared shortly before 10 am on Wednesday only to be told that the place of the hearing had been changed. Photo by BGNES

Former Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and his lawyer, Menko Menkov, appeared at the Specialized Prosecutor's Office shortly before 10 am on Wednesday to attend the submission of the indictment against Tsvetanov.

However, Tsvetanov and Menkov left the building shortly after that, with Menkov specifying that Tsvetanov had not yet been made defendant to the illegal wiretapping trial as the prosecutors had changed the place of summoning to the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office at the last minute.

Menkov, as cited by Sega daily, noted that the judge had terminated the proceedings because the other defendants to the case had not been summoned.

"I am obviously special," Tsvetanov stated in response to a question about the last-minute change of place of the hearing.

Tsvetanov, former Interior Minister and current MP and Deputy Chair of the center-right GERB party, was stripped of his immunity from prosecution last week at the request of Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov.

He faces charges of failing to exercise proper control over Interior Ministry officials, thereby enabling the unauthorized deployment of special surveillance equipment against high-profile politicians, magistrates and businesspeople.

If found guilty, Tsvetanov faces a penalty of up to eight years in prison.

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