Germany Set to Arrest Disgraced Bulgarian Official with Fake Diploma - Report

Politics » DOMESTIC | December 5, 2010, Sunday // 15:26
Bulgaria: Germany Set to Arrest Disgraced Bulgarian Official with Fake Diploma - Report Kalina Ilieva never completed her studies at the Berlin University for Engineering and Economics, from which she claimed to have graduated. Photo by BGNES

Berlin prosecutors are about to issue a European arrest warrant against the former head of a Bulgarian agency overseeing hundreds of millions of euros in EU farm aid, who got the job using a faked German university diploma, reports say.

The prosecutor's office in Germany is acting on unofficial information that Kalina Ilieva, who was fired in October as head of the State Agriculture Fund, may go into hiding abroad, 168 Hours weekly reported, citing high-ranking unnamed sources.

The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) requires the receiving member state to arrest and transfer a criminal suspect or sentenced person to the issuing state that so that the person can be put on trial or complete a detention period.

Extradition must take place within 90 days of arrest or within 10 days if the arrested person consents to surrender.

In 2009, Ilieva became head of the state agency handling payments from the European Union, of which Bulgaria became a member. She was 28 at the time.

Her job was to implement stricter oversight over EU-funded projects, after several corruption affairs saw Brussels sever aid to Bulgaria. The EU unblocked all aid in November 2009.

Ilieva now faces charges in both Bulgaria and Germany after it turned out that the diploma she produced before being hired, claiming to have graduated from the Berlin University for Engineering and Economics, was faked.

The scandal erupted at the end of last month, when it also emerged that she has flooded the EU anti-fraud agency with hundreds of fraud signals.

Officials have warned that the European Commission may press Bulgaria into paying back more than BGN 200 M as many of the blacklisted companies have won their cases against Ilieva in court.

Reports also say Bulgaria's Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov's phone conversations have been tapped for more than six months as a result of a signal from the discredited former head of the Agriculture Fund.

Previously, she lied she had a tumor and was very ill in an attempt to conceal her pregnancy, which led to her removal from the post in October.

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Tags: forged, diploma, Agriculture Fund, Kalina Ilieva, Ilieva, EU

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