SOFIA, March 17 – Former Bulgarian prime minister and leader of the largest opposition party, GERB, Boyko Borissov, was detained late Thursday as part of a police operation linked to an investigation by the EU Attorney General’s Office, the interior ministry said.
Former Prime Minister Borisov’s ten-year rule ended last April after elections that showed popular discontent with high-level corruption in the European Union’s poorest member state. More
In December, a new centrist coalition government came to power, declaring zero tolerance for bribery.
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Three other members of Borisov’s center-right GERB party, including former Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov, were also detained in Bulgaria in the operation by the European Prosecutor’s Office (EPP), the interior ministry said.
EPPO, headed by former Romanian Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Laura Covesi, is involved in a serious fraud related to the misuse of EU funds.
Kovesi, who ended a two-day visit to Bulgaria earlier Thursday, said her office had received a record high number of complaints from Bulgaria and opened 120 investigations.
Dozens of politicians and GERB supporters gathered in front of Borisov’s house on the outskirts of Sofia, chanting the resignation of the new government and accusing it and the police of political repression.
“Borisov has not yet been charged. The police searched his house. He was taken to the headquarters of the National Police, where, most likely, he will be detained for a day,” his lawyer Menko Menkov said. reporters.
Borisov’s supporters later moved to the national police building and on Friday promised to protest in front of the government.
A former bodyguard of late-communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, Borisov, 62, ruled the Balkan country on short hiatuses from 2009 to April last year, backed by massive government spending on infrastructure projects.
During massive demonstrations against bribery in 2020, protesters accused Borisov of collaborating with the country’s prosecutor general on behalf of local oligarchs and businesses close to his party.
Two years ago, a number of Bulgarian websites published photographs purporting to show Borisov’s alleged wealth, including images of a bedside table stuffed with gold bars and 500-euro bills.
Borisov denies any wrongdoing and says the photos were part of an elaborate scheme devised by his political opponents to embarrass him.
Bulgaria, ranked by Transparency International as the most corrupt EU member state, has yet to jail a senior official on bribery charges.
“No one is above the law,” Prime Minister Kirill Petkov wrote on his Facebook page.
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Reportage of Tsveteliya Tsolova; editing by Richard Pullin
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