Bulgaria's Chief Prosecutor, Boris Velchev, said Thursday he will not comment on the results of the investigation before they are completed. Photo by BGNES
Bulgaria's Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev refused to comment on the results of the checks by the Prosecutor's Office regarding the media leak of tapped phone conversations between high-rank officials.
"I know many things but I cannot always say everything that I know. I cannot express my personal opinion. I know that the media have many questions but at this point I do not have answers because we are waiting for the results from the technical expertises, ordered on Monday," Velchev said Thursday.
The Prosecutor's Office is investigating whether the conversation between Bulgaria's Head of the Customs Agency, Vanyo Tanov, and the MPs from Bulgaria's ruling party GERB Menda Stoyanova and Iskra Fidosova, were a subject of special surveillance devices or not.
"Somebody has to tell us what these records are, how they were received and in what format they were recorded. All of this matters," Velchev said.
Discredited conversations between Tanov and his superiors – Finance Minister Simeon Djankov and Deputy Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov – were released last week by the Galeria weekly, a paper believed to be the mouthpiece of Alexei Petrov, former special agent of the State National Security Agency DANS, (currently under house arrest), who has been investigated on organized crime charges since his arrest in the much advertised "Operation Octopus" in February 2010.
On Monday, the Bulgarian conservative Order, Law and Justice (RZS) party disclosed tapes of tapped phone conversations between Tanov and Iskra Fidosova, who is the Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Group of the GERB party, and Tanov and Menda Stoyanova, who is the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on budget and state finances.
The tapes reveal how the two key MPs pressured the Customs Agency head to appoint certain persons, which he believes to be outright criminals, to head local customs offices.
On Wednesday, Sofia's Prosecutor's Office announced it has not launched a legal procedure against Tanov and no order has been issued for wiretapping him.