A man, claiming to be a priest, has threatened with death Bulgaria's Interior Minister Rumen Petkov in a telephone conversation with officials from the department that he heads, reports say.

The man reportedly asked to make an appointment with Minister Petkov and then threatened him with death. The call was received at the Interior Ministry shortly before 1 pm on Tuesday.

"Rumen Petkov will deplore the day he was born," reports, based on insiders, cited the anonymous man as saying. He threatened to shot dead the interior minister.

Officials from the Interior Ministry declined comment.

The news comes just days after a brutal gangland-style assault, involving nationalist MPs, rattled the country.

Nationalist Ataka party leader Volen Siderov and his deputy Pavel Chernev have been accused of harassing a young man and his grandfather following a collision with their car. The party, however, saw the accident as an attempt on their leader's life.

Qualifying this as an attempt on the nationalist leader's life is absurd, Interior Minister Rumen Petkov said for the media. It is quite speculative to claim that Siderov had been assaulted, Petkov said, adding that it looked like it was the other way round. One of the results of Bulgaria's period of transition is that people who have been trusted with power felt invincible, the minister commented.

These comments infuriated Siderov and he quickly called for Petkov's head on a platter.

It is no flattering tribute that Minister Petkov has been too busy since he took office. He has faced harsh criticism for failing to report a single conviction for the string of murders, including the brutal rape and death of two sisters from the town of Pazardzhik.

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