Association defends Geshev and pays lobbyists for influence in the US Congress

The last visit of Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev In the U.S., he was invited by Jewish organizations, but he also used the voyage to meet U.S. lawmakers. It is known that such meetings do not happen without preparation by lobbyists, who in turn have to declare who pays them. From the latest Declarations

by the lobbying company Ambrose Partners LLC make it clear that she was hired by a Bulgarian association known for its public positions in defense of Geshev.

Association “For an Independent Judiciary

” appeared a year ago and in its management are the young lawyer Dimitar Nikolaev Mitov (lawyer at

the office of Menko Menkov), Assoc. Dr. Petar Georgiev Bonchovski

(expert at the National Assembly, ministries and other state organizations) and Ch. ace. Dr Yanko Venelinov Roychev by the Institute of State and Law. The latter, together with Menko Menkov, defended Boyko Borisov in the defamation case against Kiril Petkov.

For an Independent Judiciary’s contract with Ambrose Partners was signed by both parties on April 13 and 18, 2023, respectively, for $45,000. For this amount, the association will receive lobbying services for 6 months.

The lobbying contract is effective as of May 1, 2023, the day of the explosion. near Geshev’s car, which he described as an attack planned to kill him. A few days later, Geshev left for the United States and stayed there until May 13. According to him, during that time he was on vacation.

The association has not yet published an annual financial report and it is not clear what the origin of this amount is.

“For an Independent Judiciary”

Recently, with a letter to the new US Ambassador Kenneth Merton, signed by other NGOs. The address shows the arguments of Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev against the intentions for judicial reform, which also includes the possibility of investigating it.

The association
actually figures
in the Civil Council at the Supreme Judicial Council under number 12, along with other organizations that prioritize positions in favor of Geshev or are on manual control of the head of the Supreme Administrative Court Georgi Cholakov. Among them there are those established and led by former prosecutors who are extremely actively “trolling” on social networks (and not only).

The three lawyers who created and represented the Association are non-random people. A careful examination of court records practically does not reveal their participation in court cases. In other words, these are “office” lawyers who do not actually appear in cases (this category includes Petyo Euro and Momchil Mondeshki, for example, without claiming to have a connection).

The exception in this case is Adv. Bonchovski, who appears in one lawsuit in the Supreme Administrative Court, conducted in connection with the ruling of the CPC under the CPC. Among the owners of the companies in the case we do not find “operationally interesting” persons. More interesting, however, is the case, Led by Bonchovski in his personal capacity, against refusal to be elected to the academic position of “Associate Professor” at the Institute for the State and Law at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Bonchovski won at first instance, and for unclear reasons BAS decided not to appeal. The curious thing here is that the judge in the case is the non-accidental Zornitsa Doychinova, until recently interim head of the ACSC. Doychinova became famous mostly for her functionally illiterate decision in a case brought by a journalist under the Access to Public Information Act (APIA) in which she literally stated that what works (and whether it works) the prosecution is not the job of citizens. In other words, he voluntarily removed the prosecution from the list of subjects obliged under the APIA. We note this detail of the work won by Bonchovski only for the sake of completeness of the statement, and leave the conclusions to you.

However, it turns out that adv. Bonchovski is interesting with something else. For many years he has been a partner in a company with main activity trade with petroleum products. To date, the company appears to be in hibernation, with no apparent business or publishing AFS (or anything else). The second partner in the company, however, is a certain Aleksandar Georgievic Susevic, by all appearances a Serb with an American passport living in New York. Is this Serbo-American some kind of warm (or cool) relationship with American lobbying companies, generously paid by attorney-at-law? Bonchovski (perhaps, and from an unknown other who), we are yet to find out and establish. The interesting thing about the company Benj-Oil is that it was registered back in 1997 – that is, shortly after the end of the first Yugoslav embargo and before the beginning of the second.

Over the years, American lobbyists have been hired by Bulgarian bankers and banks (Tsvetan Vassilev, Petya Slavova), sanctioned political persons (Delyan Peevski, Alexander Manolev), well-known businessmen (Georgi Samuilov, Veliko Zhelev, Kiril Domuschiev), but for the first time a non-governmental organization appeared as a client, which, among other things, was a member of the Civil Council of the SJC.

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