Prosecutor’s Office Crushes Billions in Abuse Reports in Road Construction

At the beginning of this year, a message appeared on the website of the Ministry of Finance, which somehow went between the lines. The subject of this announcement was a signal to the prosecution by Ministers Assen Vassilev and Violeta Komitova, as early as 29.07.2021. The signal is about incorrectly spent funds by RIA in particularly large amounts – namely, a total of 40 contracts with a cant of BGN 2.9 billion above the approved value, implemented through annexes and in violation of the Public Procurement Act. Now it becomes clear that the prosecutor’s office has quietly terminated the probes on the signal with the opinion that there are no crimes.

GERB’s favorite mushengias and misery in the sector – inscription, repair-on-repair, basic construction disguised as an ongoing repair, led to theft, destruction and wasted billions. Against which as a result it stands – unclear what. One could hardly be surprised by the subsequent prosecutorial reaction to this signal – that’s right, you guessed it, the casketure refuses to initiate pre-trial proceedings. For at least a decade we have known that Bulgarian prosecutors fall into a stupor and shock whenever it comes to GERB or (yok, sakan!) to DPS. Like suddenly lit by night lighthouses rabbits, the local prosecutors freeze and freeze in the middle of the road – and do not dare to torture or move. Why – but very simple why. At the top of every scheme and misery in the construction of roads in Bulgaria invariably stands the Sun. Which shines from Bankya. And below it His two nearest planets – Nankov and Avramova (but especially Nankov). And Prosecutor General Geshev is privately owned by the Sun personally and GERB in general. The new, however, dear readers, is that this time we are able to tell you in detail how and why the casketure laundered the RIA of GERB. And which particular prosecutors can we thank for this.

The prosecutor as a frozen rabbit

BIRD was provided with not one, but three prosecutorial decrees, requested by our reader under the APIA. The respective file numbers in the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office, SAP and SCP are 18166/21, 205/22 and 9621/21. A check of BIRD in the online register of the PRB confirmed that the files have actually been terminated.

And so, the first in the case is pronounced. Deyan Zahariev from Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office, long-term seconded by the SRS. On December 15, 2021, he issued a refusal to initiate pre-trial proceedings. Without getting stuck in unnecessary detail, his motives are generally as follows. First of all, RIA had lent the money after a decree of the Council of Ministers. Since both the RIA and the Council of Ministers are collective bodies and criminal responsibility is personal, there can be no crime at all. That is, it should somehow be possible to point the finger at only one or several persons who can be charged. This approach is perplexing, generally speaking. For it follows that whatever unlawful acts, squanders and mismanagement a collective body may realize, it will always be criminally invulnerable – only because it is collective. We recall that this is a favorite stick and “gyavolk” of GERB and their own prosecutor’s office – in an identical way, by a decree of the “collective” Council of Ministers, were Pour 200 million leva state money to plug the capital hole in The Bad Apple FIB, as well as 43 million leva in the private “hole Gergov’s” in Varna. In both cases, the prosecutor’s office saw nothing wrong, of course.

Secondly, Zahariev writes that in order for there to be a crime, a state official must have deliberately aimed to obtain a benefit for himself or someone else. Well, the benefit is there, we would say, given that non-random companies are benefiting with amounts much above the envisaged. And, as the Ministry of Finance writes in its signal, there is no way the RIA and the Council of Ministers to “unintentionally” allocate this money. In general, there is a coherent chain of solutions along the entire vertical of the executive power, with every link in the chain the necessary signatures from the necessary “collective body”.

Thirdly, Zahariev argues that even if the money was unlawfully disbursed, construction and assembly works were indeed carried out against this money. In other words, the paid thing is still a pit. However, it is not clear whether work has really been done or whether it has been done only on documents (another favorite Gerber trick). The position of the Ministry of Finance is that many of these repairs are actually fictitious – and nothing real is done. Proc. Zahariev, however, does not bother to investigate this, nor does he assign such actions to his investigative bodies as GDBOP. That is, the prosecutor “works” entirely on documents (provided to him mainly by the Gerber RIA) and tries not to dig too deeper. However, as we have seen from the investigations along Hemus Lots 7, 8 and 9, too often against this disbursed money there are no construction results – but for example, newly built luxury
houses
near the Logodaj dam are proven. Or a new residential
building
near Zaimov Park in Sofia. Which outrages the prosecution also does not investigate, because they obviously do not care about it. Because it is more important to
stalk
who enters the MS, for example.

We will not pay much attention to the pronouncements of the SAP and the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office, but we will focus on the new in them. Generally speaking, the superior prosecutors reiterate the thesis of their colleague from SAP about “collective irresponsibility”. The main new point is the citation of relevant case law, indicating a single
decision
of the Supreme Court of Cassation that it was 10 years ago. However, we would point out that it would be good for prosecutors to refer to more recent case law – it is seen, either they have not found one, or they have not bothered to search. However, we searched – and came to interesting results. For example, in the “EVN case” Djankov, Traykov and Prokopiev were charged and tried precisely for a decision of a collective body. What the court thinks about this prosecutorial masterpiece you can see
here
, and enough has already been written about it. It will go down in
history
there. Emil Petrov (Petyo’s brother the Euro), who tried unsuccessfully to quote “Ecliasta” (?!) But there are more – for example, only Minister Petar Moskov was charged and tried for a collective decision of the Council of Ministers, and was subsequently
also acquitted
.

Therefore, the logical question arises in our country – since the decision of the Supreme Court of Cassation for 10 years has been known to the prosecutors, why then did the three of them trich on EVN, as well as Moskov, as well as others like them?! Given that the accusatory construction in these cases was inherently wrong, shall we say crazy? The answer – the only possible one that is formed – lies in the double yardstick of the prosecution. Because, you see, the above mentioned gentlemen are not from GERB. So they can be trichans. And the bosses in RIA and MRDPW are from GERB – therefore, it cannot. Or rather, it shouldn’t. So, regarding the prosecutor’s “reflections” on collective irresponsibility, we will allow ourselves to further develop the two counter-examples mentioned above: the EVN case and the case of Health Minister Moskov. In both cases, it concerns decisions of the Council of Ministers, taken by it as a collective body – respectively in the field of energy and health. The casing, however, focuses only on the minister who submitted the proposal for a vote. Well, then let’s ask – couldn’t the focus in this case be the same, i.e. on Minister Nikolay Nankov as principal of RIA?! I guess he can’t, because Nankov is from GERB. And the ministers Traycho Traykov and Petar Moskov were from the “bad right” (while GERB are the “good right”). Therefore, they are entitled to friction, while Nankov – an umbrella.

Non-Random Prosecutors

As mentioned above, it is not irrelevant which prosecutors order the refusals to form DP. So, let’s drive in a row. BIRD sources in the prosecutor’s office, in response to our question where the proc came from. Zahariev, they replied as follows, we quote: “the colleague is a former traffic policeman.” However, in 2017 he
applied
for head of the SRS – but apparently unsuccessfully. Further studies of ours have shown that proc. Over the years, Zahariev has also repeatedly appeared in competitions for a district judge. As evidenced by the published competitive results, however, it seems that it has never shone up. But if you don’t, sometime in early 2019 Zahariev stops taking part in competitions. Or rather, he stops having to show up. Why? Well, for the reason on duty, he’s posted. Since then, to this day, for three or a half years, Zahariev has been
seconded
to the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office by the SRS. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to grow in your career. The problem, however, is how you grow – and what do you agree to do against being catapulted up without a competition. As you can see from what we told you above, it’s clear what. Obviously, the “consideration” in Zahariev’s case is to NOT investigate Boyko’s RIA. In order not to go higher than RIA – i.e. to Boyko. Or, as Geshev’s good friend General Chaika says, “the most important thing in an investigation is not to get to ourselves.”

Then it becomes even more interesting because the time comes to “get on” to the Sofia Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, where the ministers file an appeal. Along the lines of instance control, there the complaint falls to another seconded prosecutor – Irena Gancheva. Prosecutor Gancheva is, it can be said without exaggeration, not only a superior prosecutor to Zahariev – but also (at least) doubly interesting. She is the prosecutor who in 2014 – in violation of the Constitution – initiated proceedings against President Plevneliev, at the behest of the person (with apology) Barekov. We talked about it in detail in this
investigation
. For now, as long as we recall that it also crushed with insane motives the signal against TPP Dogan, filed by Czech Senator Lukasz Wagenknecht. Comparing the time frame, it seems that she was seconded to SAP soon after this “crushing” as a reward for the well-executed (dirty) order. Besides, with the washing of the sacred cow Dogan , she finally washes away the “shame from the forehead” made by her along the signal of the face (again with apologies) Barekov.

In the third and final episode of this, let’s call it, a prosecutor’s soap opera we are already “uploading” to the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office. As the saying goes, “higher is not,” or if there is, it is only God. Again on the appeal of the ministers, there the file falls on proc. Clementina Palicheva (quite by the way, in English clementine means type of tangerine). Proc. Palicheva is quite a key figure, although she is unknown in the public domain. But we will now correct this fact. In 2017, she was still working in the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office, where she managed to generate a serious
scandal
over unauthorized and used by the SCC special intelligence means (SSDs). We remind our readers that then the reform-minded head of the Sofia City Court Kaloyan Topalov found serious
and systematic violations
in the authorization of SSDs by three judges – Bogdana Zhelyavska, Ivo Dachev and Nikolay Dimov. Pre-trial proceedings were initiated in the case, which (expectedly) was quietly crushed a year later. However, Proc. Palicheva – as a supervising prosecutor then – had dared to “demand” entire cases from the secret registry of the Sofia City Court. The court’s leadership and refused due to lack of legal basis, inviting her to a meeting to find a way to share the necessary information. Palicheva’s answer was as follows, we quote him in all his glamorous arrogance: “I have no practice to hold meetings with applicants on files I have observed” – given that the “applicant” is the chairman of the most key court in Bulgaria! Provoked by this edifying tone, in response Judge Topalov published all correspondence with the prosecutor.

Only for the sake of completeness of the exhibition we will add that after the inauguration of the SCC Chairman Alexei Trifonov, the correspondence between the Sofia City Court and Palicheva disappeared without a trace from the SCC website. Nevertheless, BIRD got a copy of our sources – and so we were able to appreciate and share with you the readers of Proc’s “style of work”. Palicheva. And why Trifonov conveniently (for the prosecution) deleted the file from the court’s website – we leave the conclusions to you.

Is there a way out of this Paragraph 22

From the above it should be clear that the so-called. Instance control within the prosecutor’s office is vicious and pointless. Therefore, quite promising are the recently presented bills, which for the first time in history regulate judicial review over refusals to initiate pre-trial proceedings. This is perhaps the only way to break the prosecutor’s monopoly over the (in)formation of DP – by giving a controlling function to the court. After all, any monopoly leads to abuse. And the prosecutor’s monopoly is absolute – it leads to the worst abuses in our judicial system. Reference – ACF’s investigations “The Eight Dwarfs” and “Quick Control List“. Apart from these examples, we will soon present an investigation of ours in this spirit. In the end, it remains only to hope that in the next parliament will gather enough deputies to vote on these legislative amendments – and who can not be “afraid” of GERB, sorry, of PRB.

***

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