Key Bulgarian MP Implicated in Corruption Scandal Claims

Politics » DOMESTIC | January 21, 2011, Friday // 14:31
Bulgaria: Key Bulgarian MP Implicated in Corruption Scandal Claims Iskra Fidosova, co-chair of the GERB Parliamentary Group, has come anew under attack over an alleged corruption scandal. Photo by BGNES

MP Iskra Fidosova, Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Group of Bulgaria's ruling party GERB, has been implicated in what is an alleged corruption scandal by the marginal conservative party RZS.

At a press conference Friday, Yane Yanev, the leader of RZS (which stands for "Order, Law, Justice"), showed to the press a payment invoice, which states on December 15, 2007, Fidosova received BGN 150 000 under a property rent contract from Titas AS, one of the companies that handles Sofia's garbage disposal.

Yanev did not reveal how he got hold of the document but asked what property the rent payment refers to, and if it is true that Fidosova had not declared the sum in her tax returns.

"Is this the way the GERB party raised funds for their election campaigns," the representatives of the RZS party asked on Friday.

Titan AS has a contract of Sofia's street cleaning and garbage disposal since March 2009.

The RZS party demanded that GERB leader and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov answer their questions about the BGN 150 000 transaction that Fidosova got, and that the Prosecutor's Office and the State National Security Agency DANS should investigate what Yanev called "an evident act of money laundering and illegal funding of a political party."

Iskra Fidosova, who was a notary public in the northwestern city of Montana before she became one of GERB's key MPs after the 2009 elections, has refused to comment on the RZS information.

"I don't know what document Yanev has exposed," was her only reply.

This is the second time in two weeks that Fidosova has come under fire from the RZS party after last week she figured in "Tapegate", the scandal with leaked tapes of telephone conversations of senior Bulgarian officials, which were leaked by the Galeria weekly, a paper believed to be the mouthpiece of arrested former secret agent Aleksei Petrov, and by the RZS party.

The tape of a conversation between Fidosova and Customs Agency head Vanyo Tanov alleged reveals that she was trying to pressure him to appoint a certain person as the head of the customs office in the Danube port of Lom.

The authenticity of the tapes is disputed, and according to forensic experts of the Prosecutor's Office there is evidence that they may have been manipulated.

The RZS party, which itself is rumored to be close to Aleksei Petrov, a former secret agent and commando, arrested in police operation Octopus in February 2010, has been increasingly vocal in attacking the ruling party GERB, allegedly seeking to reveal violations by its key figures.

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Tags: Iskra Fidosova, MP, MPs, GERB, RZS, Yane Yanev, Titan Chistota, corruption, Tapegate

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