Notorious SAPARD Draining Case Enters Bulgaria Court Again

Crime | September 30, 2009, Wednesday // 08:32
Bulgaria: Notorious SAPARD Draining Case Enters Bulgaria Court Again Mario Nikolov. Photo by BGNES

Sofia City Court will resume on Wednesday the trial against Mario Nikolov and eight other defendants over the draining of EUR 8 M from the EU SAPARD program.

The trial was halted after one of the defendants, Ivan Ivanov, was listed on the ticket of the opposition LIDER party to run for a seat in the future Bulgarian Parliament on July 5. Under local legislation he was entitled to immunity during the election campaign.

The Court stopped the trial despite earlier reports that the Regional Electoral Commission in the city of Plovdiv received a request from LIDER to take out Ivan Ivanov from the party ticket because he is a defendant in a trial.

LIDER stated that Ivanov had presented a certificate of having a clean criminal record, but never told them that there was a pending trial against him and later asked the Court to stop the trail over his candidate immunity.

Nikolov's trial began on February 19; he is accused of numerous violations of the EU SAPARD program.

While the siphoning of millions of euros from the SAPARD funds was investigated as early as 2007, Mario Nikolov became truly notorious in June 2008 when a report by the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF leaked to the Bulgarian media.

The report referred to Nikolov and his partner Lyudmil Stoykov as the leaders of the "Nikolov-Stoykov" group, which was allegedly involved in a number of corruption schemes and enjoying political protection.

The OLAF Report also exposed the two businessmen as sponsors of the election campaign of Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov, and as people close to the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party.

Mario Nikolov's trial has become a test of the ability of Bulgaria's judiciary to make use of the evidence provided by OLAF.

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Tags: Mario Nikolov, SAPARD

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