Ex-Bulgarian PM rejects document misuse claim
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Bulgaria’s former prime minister on Thursday rejected accusations he had mislaid classified documents while in office, saying the case against him was “a politically-inspired farce.”
Sergey Stanishev, who steered Bulgaria into the European Union as head of a socialist-led government, faces criminal charges of misuse of official information between 2005 and 2009.
According to the Sofia prosecutor’s office, Mr Stanishev failed to return seven documents – three from the state intelligence agency, two from the interior ministry and one each from the ministry of defence and the Nato alliance – after signing that he had received them.
Mr Stanishev denied any wrongdoing. He said the current right-of-centre government under Boyko Borissov, the prime minister, was “applying double standards”.
“Both the prosecutor’s office and the investigation service were under huge political pressure from the executive to pursue charge against me,” he said.
The former prime minister is the most senior politician from the previous government to face charges for alleged misconduct under Mr Borissov’s campaign to expose high-level corruption.
But the charges against Mr Stanishev carry less weight than those brought against former members of his cabinet.
A former defence minister, two former agriculture ministers and a social welfare minister are all under investigation for alleged corruption.
Following Bulgaria’s EU accession in 2007, Mr Stanishev faced sustained criticism from Brussels for failing to tackle high-level corruption and organised crime.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in EU funding were frozen amid accusations that cabinet members had close links with companies that were fronts for organised crime groups.
Mr Borissov, who who won a sweeping election victory one year ago, has pledged to dismantle criminal groups and clean up the administration.
“Under the previous government the perception was that the criminal organisations had the upper hand. This has been reversed, but the crackdown has been selective,” said Ognian Shentov of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia think-tank.
source ft.com
Sep 8, 2010 - 03:28
