Appeals Prosecutor Exonerates Bulgarian Top Cop of Classified Leaks

Politics » DOMESTIC | March 13, 2011, Sunday // 14:47
Appeals Prosecutor Exonerates Bulgarian Top Cop of Classified Leaks: Appeals Prosecutor Exonerates Bulgarian Top Cop of Classified Leaks Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, caused an uproar by reading in the Parliament tapes obtained through special surveillance devices. Photo by BGNES

The Sofia Appellate Prosecutor's Office has not found any violations committed by Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, in making public the wiretapped conversations between for doctors from the hospital in the central town of Gorna Oryahovitsa.

The news was reported Sunday by the Bulgarian news agency, BTA, citing sources from the prosecution.

The findings reaffirm those of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office from the beginning of February.

According to the appellate and Sofia prosecutors, the information has been declassified legally with the monitoring prosecutor in the case making the decision it had to be made public to appease tensions in society.

At the very end of November, the Bulgarian public was shocked and the Interior Ministry and the Doctors' Union were tangled in an embarrassing dispute over suspicions some obstetricians might have deliberately killed a baby.

Four doctors from a hospital of the central Bulgarian town of Gorna Oryahovitsa were arrested on November 30 on allegations they left a prematurely-born baby die without helping it. After the birth, the doctors allegedly told the 17-year-old mother the baby was still-born; however, an employee of the hospital saw the baby showing some movement.

The scandal grew out of proportion as the police released tapes obtained through special surveillance devices. The recordings were of 3 conversations between the hospital head and some of the delivering doctors, where they can be heard talking about the baby being born alive. The tapes stirred huge outrage, after Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, publically read them in the Parliament, over the cynical language of the doctors regarding the baby's fate and their awareness they could face charges for letting the fetus die.

The arrests caused the Bulgarian Doctors' Union and the medical community to rise up in protest against the "police state" measures.

According to Tsvetanov, the conversations show the baby was "deliberately murdered." He explained the tapes have been declassified and released in response to the negative public reaction to the arrests. It turned out that the police had been spying on the doctors over suspicions of financial crimes committed by the head of the Gorna Oryahovitsa hospital.

The doctors were released on December 2, 2010, as the prosecutors could not find definitive evidence of a crime.

Right before the Christmas Holidays, the expert opinion of coroners, who performed an autopsy of the baby, was revealed showing solid proofs that the baby was still-born. The coroners explained the baby's movement with spinal impulses after brain death occurred in the mother's womb

On December 22, the last work day of the Parliament, Tsvetanov was summoned there to provide explanations about the actions of the Interior Ministry in the case, but the Minister appeared in plenary hall only after 8 pm at which point there was no quorum for his hearing as most MPs had left.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!

Domestic » Be a reporter: Write and send your article
Tags: Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Interior Minister, Gorna Oryahovitsa, still-born, parliament, Prosecutor's Office, Prosecutor, special surveillance devices, SRS

Advertisement
Advertisement
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria