Kiril Petkov gave up his Parliamentary Immunity

Politics | June 16, 2023, Friday // 19:54| views

Kiril Petkov

The co-chairman of "We Continue the Change" Kiril Petkov renounces his parliamentary immunity. He announced this himself on Facebook, specifying that the replacement of Ivan Geshev with Borislav Sarafov is an imitation of judicial reform.

Sarafov himself made it clear earlier in the day that he is inclined to withdraw the requests for the giving up of the parliamentary protection of Boyko Borissov and Kiril Petkov, because his predecessor Geshev became more active with the cases against the two, after he saw himself threatened by the politicians because of the adopted mechanism for controlling the Prosecutor General.

However, according to Kiril Petkov, this is not the way in which an objective and transparent examination of the facts should be conducted on each of the requests.

This is what Kiril Petkov wrote on Facebook:

"Replacing Geshev with Sarafov is an imitation. This is not a judicial reform.

Mr. Sarafov's request for a revision of the submitted requests for the removal of the parliamentary immunity is not the way in which an objective and transparent examination of the facts of each of the requests should be conducted. If he withdraws the requests, Sarafov will hinder the publicity provided by the temporary immunity commission, and the cases could once again end up 'in limbo'.

Today I decided to give up my immunity because I do not want to rely on the illegitimate appointment of Mr. Sarafov to decide whether or not to withdraw my immunity request.

At the same time, I got acquainted with the documents submitted to the parliament, as I hope all other people's representatives did, and I came across the following facts, precisely because of which we wanted to make the temporary committee on immunities.

Here are the highlights:

12/16/2021, the Sofia District Prosecutor's Office issues a decree refusing to initiate pre-trial proceedings, as no crime has been committed.

- On the express instruction of the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office, the finding of the Sofia District Prosecutor's Office was checked by both the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office and the Sofia Appellate Prosecutor's Office. Both prosecutor's offices confirm that no crime was committed, on 14.02.2023 and 9.05.2023, respectively.

- Suddenly, however, on 30/05/2023, the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office under Chief Prosecutor Geshev requested and received the file within hours. According to the instructions of the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office, the rulings of the Sofia District Prosecutor's Office, the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office and the Sofia Appellate Prosecutor's Office have been annulled. Pre-trial proceedings were instituted the very next day - 31/05/2023. No additional data, no new evidence or any other new circumstances. The only argument is a 'new' interpretation of the law, which apparently, according to them, was not interpreted correctly by the previous three prosecutor's offices in the last 2 years. And all this they managed to do from May 30 to May 31, 2023 - what speed and at what an important moment for Mr. Geshev.

I call on the prosecutor's office to make all the documents related to this file public, so that it becomes clear to the entire Bulgarian people, and not only to the people's representatives, how the prosecutor's office continues to be an instrument of political pressure. But I state again that the way is not to replace Geshev with Sarafov, we need a real judicial reform, after which the institutions, and not convenient appointments, guarantee justice and a fair trial.

We will not stop until real change, not imitation, is achieved."

The post is also accompanied by a copy of Kiril Petkov's application.