Visible Change: You Umbrella the Mayor – You Become Police Chief

A recording from November 2018 proves that the then Deputy Director of the Ministry of Interior – Commissioner Tsvetomil Hristov and the then head of the Montana Police Precinct Ch. inspector Biser Yonchev, who until recently was head of the Montana Directorate, “unfurled an umbrella” over the Mayor of Boychinovtsi Municipality Svetlin Sreteniev. The two chiefs pressed the employee of the local police station Sergei Lyubenov Mitov to move “voluntarily” to the Montana Economic Police or to the Chiprovtsi section so as not to work on Mayor Svetlin Alexiev Sreteniev and his associates. Instead of investigating crimes in office, the new government, claiming change, appointed Tsvetomil Hristov as head of the Berkovitsa Regional University.

The situation is not a precedent. During the three mandates of GERB’s government, the concept of local government became synonymous with severe corruption. Municipalities such as Pazardzhik, Blagoevgrad and Pernik at the end of the last decade became notorious for the opaque allocation of public funds and municipal assets. The poorer Northwest is not backing down on them.

But what happens when a police chief or officer goes, rightly so, against the local government? He is usually crushed unless his actions are a “commission” of the central government. Sergei Lyubenov Mitov falls into the first hypothesis. He is a senior police inspector at the Boychinovtsi section, part of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior Montana. There is a conflict with the mayor of Boychinovtsi municipality Svetlin Sreteniev, several times managed to hinder trading with votes, prepared and implemented by people from the mayor’s team. There are also convictions in two cases.

A recording made by Mitov clearly testifies that in November 2018 the Deputy Director of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior Montana Tsvetomil Hristov

and the Director of the Montana Police Department Chief Inspector Biser Yonchev

They exert undue pressure on him. They are trying to force him to change his workplace so as not to interfere with Mayor Svetlin Serteniev.

This happened in the presence of the head of the section in Boychinovtsi – Nikolay Valeriev Nachev. In the record, Deputy. The Director of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior Montana Tsvetomil Hristov and the Director of the Regional Police Department Montana Chief Inspector Biser Yonchev state that they speak on behalf of the Director of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior – Montana – Senior Commissioner Ivaylo Antonov. The last one for a few days is
Regional Governor
of Montana, appointed by the triple NO coalition. The chiefs report that they spoke with Commissioner Antonov from the leadership of the ministry, which was then governed by today’s GERB MP Mladen Marinov.

“The director told me to give you the following, as your choice. To submit applications for reassignment to the same position in the Chiprovtsi police station, first option. Second option – scout in the “Economic Police” sector. The third option is, if you do not want the first two, to send you for a year to the same position in the Lom Police Precinct. He said that he had been called by the leadership of the Ministry to hand over this thing and this is the way to keep you from staying in the service of the Ministry of Interior.
— On what occasion should I ask?
— Well, by case… The mayor of the city went to him (…) What the conflicts are, I don’t know.
“So I don’t have anything (…) with the mayor here. I’m embarrassed to the mayor because his people have to be unpunishable here in this Boychinovtsi section. And these are people who usually do him such a job that is not for the public.
That’s all I want to tell you, I don’t know how you interpret it. But the director also handed over such a thing to Deyan Filipov, he took a sick leave in defiance. In principle, Deyan Filipov was for dismissal. (…) What has been said by the leadership on the standing, in the face of the Secretary General and the Minister, and the Minister will not wait to ask a second time, your Minister is clear that now a political figure, not a professional one. Accordingly, if you choose the Chiprovtsi section, from there the colleague who entered is from here, he will come here. The two of them will convince him at the same time as the director. He’s looking forward to next week…
“So I will meet with him to understand his point of view. If this is a political decision of someone here a local ruler who forgets himself, fine. But I don’t think that’s the way to tolerate and turn a blind eye to the obvious commission of crimes here in this community. Here, the boss is here, a direct witness, can tell you what it is about. It’s not just my opinion.
You have a clear conscience in front of you, aren’t you?
— Absolutely. I did what I had to do by law.
“There is no obstacle, I am obliged to hand this over, because I am going home and the director will ask me. And you know he’s at work, he’s not going on vacation next week, and he’s taking employees at any time. Not recorded hourly

— Yes, yes


Saturday and Sunday you will have time to orient yourself.

A day after the conversation with Biser Yonchev and Tsvetomil Hristov, Mitov met with the Director of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior – Montana – Senior Commissioner Ivaylo Antonov. The director tells him not to take any steps to move and to work calmly and legally. A little later, in 2019, Antonov Left MI. Several chiefs are listed through the directorate, and the positions of Biser Yonchev and Tsvetomil Hristov are more and more enviable. In October 2021, Yonchev Headed The regional directorate and the problems of Inspector Sergei Mitov escalate. From the materials in administrative case 490/2022 of the AC Montana, we learn that Mitov presents evidence that he was subjected to systematic official harassment in the time November 2018 until 28.11.2022, when the Director of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior Montana Biser Yonchev temporarily reappointed him for a period of one year in the Police Department of Lom by Order 301з-4198/28.11.2022. Mitov attacked the order, as illegal. Stress at work also triggers neurological problems. He was in hospital for a long time, but the administration of the Montana Interior Ministry attacked his hospital sheets. Mitov’s lawyer, Georgi Goranov, tried to apply the recording of the pressure on Mitov as evidence in the trial, but the administrative court in Montana refused to constitute this evidence and upheld the order for the posting. The decision has been appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court and is to be scheduled. Meanwhile, less than a month ago Senior Commissioner Mariyan Bozhinov He took over the leadership from Biser Yonchev, he revoked the order in question, so Mitov returned to Boychinovtsi. His lawyer Georgi Goranov, meanwhile, has approached the Chief Prosecutor about the pressure on his client. Subsequently, after a probe by the Internal Security Directorate, Mitov and two other colleagues reported corruption to the Prosecutor’s Office in Montana because of what was happening in the Directorate and the umbrella over Mayor Svetlin Serteniev. However, representatives of the state led to one, says lawyer Goranov. The file was sent to the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office to be distributed by competence to another district prosecutor’s office, probably Vratsa or Vidin, but it is not clear whether and if so, where it is being worked on.

We asked the Mayor of Boychinovtsi Municipality Svetlin Sreteniev if he had put pressure on leading figures from the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior Montana to “release” him from Inspector Sergei Mitov. Sreteniev replied that he would not give interviews and that whatever he had to investigate would investigate the prosecutor’s office regarding this policeman. Sreteniev, however, confirmed that he knew Mitov, but refused official statements on the case. Over the years, Mayor Sretniev has gone through several parties. For the first time he won elections as a candidate of the RZS, then by GERB, and now he has been nominated by BND. In his life as a political nomad, he is pointed out by me extremely close to the MP from MRF Dimitar Avramov.

We also contacted the former deputy. the director of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior Montana Tsvetomil Hristov, who denied knowing that there was a signal of corruption against him. In September 2019, Hristov was demoted to group chief of the Criminal Police Department at the Berkovitsa Police Precinct. According to insiders, however, he is a fellow student of the Ministry of Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov and is expected to have a turbulent career development in his mandate. A sign of this is his appointment as head of the Berkovitsa Police Precinct.

Biser Yonchev, who is no longer an employee of the Interior Ministry, denied that he had stretched an umbrella over Mayor Sreteniev. He noted that while he was in the system, similar checks were made on similar signals, but he had nothing to worry about.

For now, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Interior continue to try to pretend that they do not see what is happening in the municipality of Boychinovtsi and on the territory of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior – Montana. Probably, the child of a local feudal lord will have to beat someone in order for the prosecution and the Interior Ministry to step up and notice that the situation is out of control.

No change in local feudalism

Another example in this direction is the behavior of the son of the mayor of Marikostinovo Gergana Todorova. The latter is a picture of GERB, and this further strengthens the parallel with the notorious Tsenko Chokov, who in turn is a SIC cadre. Only a few days ago the mayor’s son Velko Todorov and his friend
attack
from behind and
beat up
his fellow villager Georgi Uzunov. In the resort village it is an open secret that for several years there has been tension between the mayor’s family and that of Georgi Uzunov. The reason for the scandal is the opaque and obviously vicious trading of municipal properties in Marikostinovo.

The sister of the beaten Georgi – Elena says that the conflict began when their father Iliya Iliev Uzunov was auctioning for a municipal property. There were three other bidders in the auction who, according to Elena, were strawmen of the mayor. They constantly bid and finally the auction was won by the “mayor’s people”. Two days later, the winner gave up. In this situation, Gergana Todorova had to assign the property to the second, in the case of Iliya Uzunov, or organize a new auction. However, Uzunov was not informed of the winner’s refusal. In complete “silence” a second auction was organized, or at least it is assumed that there was one where the property was won by the sister of Gergana Todorova (her husband’s sister). At the first auction, the price for the plot reached about 17,000. At the second auction, the property was traded for 3,000 or almost 6 times cheaper. 2 years ago bTV Told for several property sales in the municipality of Petrich, which were realized under the above scheme. The facts lead to the suspicion that the municipal mayor Dimitar Brachkov concentrates former municipal properties in the hands of people from GERB. For this Signaled and local activist Krum Tanev. There have been many similar cases. Iliya Uzunov, however, did not accept the situation, his daughter said.

“My father constantly filed complaints with the police and prosecutor’s office that the sale (of the property) was illegal, but everything was suppressed. He went to deal everywhere, on Petrich, complaints were released in Sofia. They just hushed it up and my dad gave up ranting.“

Other relatives of the beaten man say that after the complaints of Iliya Uzunov, the son of the mayor Gergana Todorova – Velko Todorov promised to deal with the family. The boy was known as a criminal. After the beating of Georgi Uzunov, it turned out that the attacker was on probation after a conviction sentence for another act – an accident with an escape from the scene. After an audit of the Sofia Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, it became clear that the files and the signals against the mayor’s son were systematically Concealed from the Ministry of Interior. In general, Velko Todorov has seen himself as a local gangster under the umbrella of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior – Blagoevgrad and that of the District Prosecutor’s Office. That’s no surprise. After the change of Ivan Geshev and the children, it is already clear that Boyko Borisov and Delyan Peevski decide who will be Prosecutor General in Bulgaria, and the judiciary and the SJC are heavily politicized and dependent on what Geshev defined as “political garbage”.

Leading photo: Kalin Stoyanov – Minister of Interior (left), Tsvetomil Hristov – newly appointed Head of the Berkovitsa Regional University (right)

***

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