Sigma Policemen Indicted for Bribery, Extortion
Ivaylo Vasilev, chief of a Sofia police unit, and six other members of his unit were indicted on charges of bribery and blackmail, the State Prosecutor's Office said.
Bulgaria's Interior Ministry has no information about irregular contacts between alleged Balkan drug lord Sreten Josic and Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov. This emerges from a letter by the Interior Ministry Chief Secretary Pavlin Dimitrov to the mayor.
Last week Sreten Josic, also known as Joca Amsterdam, told a Belgrade court he enjoyed the protection of high-ranking officials in Bulgaria, citing the names of the then Interior Chief Secretary Boyko Borisov, who was later elected Sofia mayor, and Nikolay Gigov, owner of Lokomotiv football club.
A day later the Socialist Party, who will be the main rival of the mayor party GERB in the upcoming general elections in the summer, said they were extremely concerned by Josic's statements.
Boyko Borisov fired back, saying that the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was using his life as stake in their pursuit of power.
According to Borisov the latest accusations were part of BSP's long-term strategy to discredit him by forcing him to give explanations and look like he was searching for excuses.
Sreten Josic, who was arrested in Bulgaria in June 2002, was extradited in August the same year to the Netherlands. He left from Vrazhdebna Airport on board a Dutch plane which used a diplomatic corridor under tight security measures. Due to lack of irrefutable evidence, the Netherlands agreed to hand the suspected mobster over to Serbia.
Josic was put on Interpol-wanted list 11 years earlier for 23 contract murders. In 1993 Josic was sentenced to three years in prison by a Dutch court for an attempted murder, but managed to escape after spending six months behind bars.
Josic is believed to be an important player in heroin and cocaine trafficking onto Western European markets, trading directly with South American cartels. His name has been linked to the murders of some of Bulgaria's underworld bosses - Poli Pantev, who was killed in March 2001 in Aruba, and Ivan Todorov - Doctora, shot dead in February in downtown Sofia.
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