Geshev’s defender from GERB received hundreds of thousands in fees from the Ministry of Regional Development

During the hearing of Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev before the Legal Committee in the National Assembly the name of GERB MP Alexander Nikolov gained unexpected popularity. He came under the “spotlight” after MPs Nikolay Hadzhigenov and Yavor Bojankov both circulated almost simultaneously through their Facebook accounts a photo of the display of the phone of Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev. The footage shows that while “debating” the judicial reform with the MPs Geshev is chatting in Signal with “Pi Ar Sevi Boiko”. They comment on the actions of Sasho Nikolov from GERB, who shone in the legal committee with memorised questions and phrases in defence of Geshev. Nikolov’s capacity in the field of law is highly questionable, but he has received huge fees from the Ministry of Regional Development during Borissov’s rule, a BRRD check found.

The development of the Geshev chat scandal has made it clear that behind Pi Ar Sevi Boiko is Sevdelina Arnaudova, who identifies herself as “Sheherazade”. In the last few years she has been the main PR of GERB chairman and former prime minister Boyko Borissov. The context of the event is that Geshev needs “support from within” in the legal committee because he is in a difficult situation after the MPs expressed their desire to close the specialised justice. It is not clear why Arnaudov and Geshev chose Nikolov as the conduit of the “right questions”. In most of the meetings of the legal committee he is far from active and, according to eyewitnesses, when Geshev is not in the committee, he even naps at times.

ITN MP Radostin Vassilev “Rudy”, who is also elected from Pleven, was the first to question the legal competence of MP Alexander Nikolov with a comment on Facebook. Nikolov is listed as a lawyer and his campaign card claims he works for a large metropolitan law firm. Our team found no confirmation of the claim of a “large metropolitan law firm”. Nikolov, however, is certainly a former Secretary General of the Supreme Administrative Court during the term of Georgi Kolev. In his post on the social network Radostin Vassilev describes how Sasho Nikolov, during the meeting of the legal committee in relation to the fate of the Protection Bureau, read from a piece of paper things that he obviously did not understand in order to save the situation (of Geshev). “Next to him was Angelkova and for her is the second smile. They are not together and they are not cooperating. Hitch! A complete disgrace!” adds Vassilev.

Why is it that an accomplished attorney and former Secretary of the SAC does not understand the substance of the debate that is taking place regarding the Witness Protection Bureau and is having to read from a piece of paper? Is he really incompetent? One of the diplomatic explanations is that he is not a penalist. Undoubtedly, Alexander Nikolov’s interests are far from criminal law. Indeed, he is attempting to enter the justice system as a judge. Until then, he was a judicial assistant at the Sofia City Court at the time when Georgi Kolev was chairman there. At the examination for junior judges in 2009. Nikolov scored 5.50 on the written exam based on a previously prepared case and 2 on the oral exam. Apparently after this disappointment Nikolov broke with criminal law. Capital reports that in 2012 Alexander Nikolov was appointed by the SJC as the head of the OPAC project “Increasing transparency and efficiency in the work of the SAC”.

According to bird.bg’s sources, Nikolov also failed the notary exam, which means that property law is not his thing. In the minutes of the results of the written examination of the competition for notaries held on 04.11.2018, announced by Order No. LS-04-330/28.05.2018. of the Minister of Justice we find a candidate with the name Alexander Nikolov and his score on the written exam is a weak 2.20. However, Nikolov made a name for himself as a lawyer and started a promising political career in GERB. Probably the “strong friendship” between Bogdan Nikolov, Alexander’s father, and Boyko Borisov has something to do with the latter fact.

In the 2021 elections. Nikolov twice managed to “qualify” as a deputy. His participation in the electoral process raised surprises for the GERB organisation in Pleven. The young man turned out to be the absolute champion in terms of preferences in the 15th MIR elections in April! The website Pleven press reports that in Pleven “Surprisingly, the second place with 4232 votes goes to the 16th on the list Alexander Nikolov – son of the president of the Bulgarian Motorcycle Federation Bogdan Nikolov.”

At the Ministerial Feed

Judging by the contracts of Atty. Alexander Nikolov with state institutions, his appearances in parliament are misleading and in fact he is a high-class lawyer. In favour of Nikolov’s high professionalism are more than 50 invoices for legal services paid to him by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works (MRDP). The then future MP was a contractor of the department under contract RD-02-29-8/09. 01. 2020 Nikolov has to represent the governing body of the Regions in Growth programme in cases brought by the Ministry of Health and the Municipality of Gabrovo. The contract for the Ministry of Regional Development was signed by Deputy Minister Denitsa Nikolova and the contract provides for the receipt of about BGN 23 000 excluding VAT, probably not counting the fees for appearing in court hearings. According to the Ordinance on Minimum Attorneys’ Fees, they are BGN 100 for each appearance, but can reach BGN 300 if the attorney (in this case the Ministry of Regional Development and Regional Development) is forced to pay. Initially Nikolov has to represent the ministry before the ACG and the AC Gabrovo, in two cases. Subsequently, dozens of annexes began to “pour in” and the young lawyer became a legal representative of the Ministry of Regional Development and Regional Development in various cases before the administrative courts in Stara Zagora, Veliko Tarnovo, Yambol, Plovdiv, Ruse, Burgas, etc., with his fees ranging from about 3 000 to over 24 000 BGN per court instance. The average value of the fees, however, is about 5000 BGN. Apparently Nikolov is a very reliable and valuable lawyer for the Ministry of Regional Development.

However, here the question arises as to why there is an entire “legal” directorate in the ministry, where for a long time the director was Veselina Terziyska. Later she became Secretary General of the Ministry of Regional Development and her signature stands under the contract and annexes with Alexander Nikolov. Boyanka Georgieva succeeds her at the head of the Legal Directorate. There are two departments in the Directorate in question – ‘regulations’ and ‘procedures and contracts’. Employees of the second department have the duty, as legal advisers, to represent the Ministry of Regional Development in litigation. For years, however, there has been the vicious practice of duplicating the work by hiring outside law firms, which are hired at breakneck prices. The law “unties” Nikolova’s hands and she engages law firms for services that cost the budget more than 4 600 000 BGN.

Already 4 months ago bird.bg wrote about the fact that for each operational programme there is a fund “Technical Assistance”, which in the case of OP “Regions in Growth” in the Ministry of Regional Development is worth 52.3 million euros. The funds are earmarked to increase the efficiency of the OPRD Managing Authority and the beneficiaries of the programme, as well as to raise public awareness on OPRD 2014-2020. These are funds earmarked for training, salaries, travel and technical support for the experts involved in the programme. However, there is evidence in the public record to support the hypothesis that the funds are subject to highly corrupt practices. It is not clear how appropriate it is to hire external law firms, such as that of Alexander Nikolov. According to the roughest accounts, in 2020 he received a financial injection of over 250 000 BGN. Thus Nikolov ranks next to the law firm Topalov & Balinova with 443 993.44 BGN and Tabakov, Tabakova & Partners with an impressive 1 117 487.78 BGN. The company “Plocheva, Valchev and Partners”, in which the dean of the law faculty of Sofia University and former education minister prof. Daniel Vulchev realized fees in the amount of 294 485.97 BGN, which are comparable to those of Nikolov. Among Denitsa Nikolova’s electors stands out the law firm “Menko Menkov and Partners” with 491 938.46 BGN paid. Menkov’s biography includes the fact that he was Tsvetan Tsvetanov’s lawyer and the case ended with an acquittal. A few months ago, our team received a report that the files related to the cases continue to be handled by the lawyers working in the Directorate. On a daily basis, the experts handled the case files filed against the managing authority of the OPRD. The law firms appeared in court with their materials. So to speak – off the shelf. However, our team has no way of verifying whether this is the case.

On the other hand, the generous fees from the Ministry of Regional Development are an excellent reason for Alexander Nikolov to stand on the ammunition in defense of the prosecutor general, who proved to be a guarantor of the lack of criminal proceedings against high-ranking GERB cadres. Unless Borissov ordered him to, as it became clear from leaked recordings. There is also the hypothesis that the fees from the Ministry of Regional Development are related to the number of preferences Nikolov received on 4 April 2021. Rumen Petkov, the leader of the ABV party, has also sounded the alarm about specific irregularities in the Pleven elections.

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