More than 1,500 files of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office are “secret”. Among them are those with great public interest.

On the updated website of the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office there is a not very visible section in which lawyers, journalists, citizens and anyone interested can consult about the progress of certain pre-trial proceedings or inspection, as long as they know the number of the prosecutor’s file. That’s in theory. In practice, however, it turns out that many files on investigations with high public interest are deliberately hidden from the public, contrary to the allegedly proclaimed “policy of transparency” by the new head of the PRB Ivan Geshev. The BSRD automated the extraction of information on all files of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the period from 2012 to 2020 and found that over 1,500 files 11,800 or 13% were hidden.

When referring to an available file, the result usually looks like this:

In this particular case, this is the probe into the concession of Yulen, ordered personally by Tsatsarov in 2018, at the height of anti-government protests regarding the appetites for the construction of Pirin National Park. The termination decree remains a mystery in itself, as the Prosecutor’s Office refuses to provide it even to the signalmen of the Green Movement themselves. This insolence is not an isolated case. Here you can see the position of Borislav Sandov on the occasion of this refusal. The supervising prosecutor in this file was personally Rumyana Arnaudova, Tsatsarov’s spokeswoman. It turns out, however, that soon after Geshev came to power, Arnaudova was replaced with a personal resolution of the new Chief. The name of the new supervising prosecutor is kept secret. It is he (she?) who is also the person who terminated the file in August 2020, at the height of the protests against Geshev and Borisov.

In addition, pay attention to the structure of this so-called. Report. Only the last development on the file is shown, but not what happened back in time to arrive at this result. In other words, one should almost check every week what is happening, and take screenshots of the current state of the file. For example, if subsequently there is another development in the file (assignment of audits to the NRA, for example) – then the next check will show only this new development and nothing before. For comparison, in the registry systems of the courts at any moment one can see the movement and development of the case in its entirety and completeness – from its submission to the court to the adjudication of the
decision/judgment.

Moreover, this way it hides whether and how long the prosecution has been inactive on a file, if, for example, “from above” instructions are issued to put the case “on corpses”. Since only the last act in the file is visible at any given time, it cannot be understood how much time has elapsed between two or more investigative actions. Sometimes this time is measured in months, but sometimes, as BIRD has had the opportunity to see – in years!

Hidden files of great public interest

This is what the result looks like if we enter the number of another case of high public interest. It is about the check on the bars and bundles of Borisov, led by the infamous Boryana Betsova

, as well as from her colleagues Vihra Pophristova and Ivaylo Petrov. Information about B.C. 10019/2020 is gone, as if the file does not exist.

And here the question immediately arises – why should this information be hidden?! To date, we already know the sad result – the proceedings were stopped with ridiculous motives. Namely, that they did not find who had taken the photos, that it was not clear whether this was a staging (just as Borisov claims, of course) and that it is not clear whether the bars and bundles were real. Despite the clearly visible serial numbers of some of them. However, if the prosecution itself had not deigned to disclose this scarce information, we would never have learned what was happening with the file! Not to mention that the prosecution stubbornly refuses to publish the decree itself.

Let’s repeat – the file undoubtedly exists and the result on it undoubtedly exists. Why is it not visible on the prosecutor’s website? Is it marked “secret” or “national security”? In fact, the reason turned out to be much more trivial, according to BIRD sources. When there are “instructions from above” a file to be kept secret, a “space” or empty space is intentionally placed in front of the file number. Thus, for the externally accessible user interface (through the PRB website), this file remains completely invisible. These simple Baiganyov’s tricks are strikingly reminiscent of the corrupt Cyrillic script used by a number of state institutions, about which they first wrote
BIVOL
and
BIRD
. Moreover, such shallow tricks and insults to the intelligence of Bulgarian citizens further erode the already low trust in the prosecution, which has been gravitating below 10% for years.

Here is a list of some of the loudest files of great public interest that the prosecution is hiding:

• Nikolay Malinov’s “Espionage” 1373/2019 Specialized Prosecutor’s Office (SP)
• “Pre-election OCG” by Nikolay Dimitrov, Mayor of Nessebar 2112/2019 SP
• The investigation against Lyubena Petrova, Petyo the Euro and the other “dwarfs” from the “Eight Dwarfs” scandal 10308/2020 Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office (Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office)
• The investigation of the system for random allocation of cases in court, loudly defined by Geshev as “coronavirus in the judicial system” 8547/2020 Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office
• The investigation against Atanas Bobokov 20 /2020 SP
• The ostentatious shooting of Ivo Stamenov from the NRA, still unresolved to this day 28491/2017 Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office
• Poisoning of Emilian Gebrev 7107/2015 Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office

At the same time, the Prosecutor’s Office in 2020 abundantly (but also highly selectively) published on its website protocols of interrogations, SSDs (including those in which the President is wiretapped) and what not. But only in relation to the “targeted” for bad oligarchs, journalists, MPs and other “enemies of the people” (i.e. Geshev/Borisov). And only “evidence” was published that supported the accusatory thesis of the state prosecution.

Here the light in the tunnel is that literally a few days ago the Criminal College of the Supreme Court of Cassation
formed
interpretative case on precisely these issues – is such disclosure of investigative materials legally permissible, incl. And when the disclosure itself is a crime? A particularly striking example in this respect was the publicized SSDs with which the President was wiretapped. BIRD recalls that in this regard, the Prosecutor’s Office was Approached against his leader back in the summer of 2020 (from Democratic Bulgaria) – precisely with evidence of a crime. To this day, there is no movement and no investigative action performed on this signal.

Over 1500 secret files of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office

After all, BIRD uses the methods of data journalism to extract from the Prosecutor’s Office website information about the files from the two most important prosecutor’s offices: Sofia City and Specialized Prosecutor’s Office. We created an information system in which everyone can check how many files are kept by years, how many of them are classified, and what is the status of the open files. Here are the first results of the analysis:

Files of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office by years:

• 2012 – 782 of them 78 hidden
• 2013 – 450 of them 135 hidden
• 2014 – 535 of them 152 hidden
• 2015 – 592 of them 136 hidden
• 2016 – 749 of them 191 hidden
• 2017 – 919 of them 154 hidden
• 2018 – 2090 of them 192 hidden
• 2019 – 2742 of them 248 hidden
• 2020 – 2593 of them 181 hidden
• Total – 11834 of them 1572 hidden

Or a total of 13.7% of the files of the special prosecutors are classified. Data for 2021 changes dynamically and can also be seen in the system, updated periodically. The search engine also allows you to filter the results by the status of the file Terminated | Refusal to form DP | Extension of deadline | Materials expected | Indictment | Sent to SANS | Sent to KONPI , etc.

The BRRD tool allows to track the changes in the files from February this year onwards. On the home page of the search engine you can see the last 50 files where there is evidence of a change in their status. The changes in each individual file can be seen by following the link with the number and year of the file. Here you can see an example with a SP file, which has been changed 3 times in the last month. Changes are updated once a week.

When using the search engine, use the following key filters that can be combined:

@prepiska for a case number. For example,
@prepiska 10308
for the file “The Seven Dwarfs”. The result will also include files from other prosecutions and years, so the year and the prosecutor’s office should be added to come across the exact file.

@year for a year in the file, for example, @year 2020 will return only results for 2020;
@prepiska 10308 @year 2020
will show only the files with this number for this year, but for all available prosecutor’s offices.

@prokuratura limits the search to a given prosecutor’s office. For example, @prokuratura Specialized Prosecutor’s Office will return all files to the Specialized and Appellate
Specialized Prosecutor’s Office
. To exclude Appellate from the search, type the minus sign like this in front of the keyword:
@prokuratura -Appellate Specialized Prosecutor’s Office

A free-text search in the file results is entered before the filters. For example, this search will return all secret files to the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office: No result was found @prokuratura -Appellate Specialized Prosecutor’s Office

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