Bulgarian Security Chiefs Face Reprimands for Attack on Dogan
Domestic | January 22, 2013, Tuesday| 499 views
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Bulgaria's National Security Services, NSO, have been blasted for allowing an assailant to reach all the way to a political leader while he was delivering a speech at a party conference. Photo by BGNES
Top bosses at Bulgaria's National Security Services, NSO, are facing serious sanctions over the attack on the country's ethnic Turkish leader, Ahmed Dogan.
The Bulgarian Sega (Now) daily writes that the NSO leadership had already analyzed security breaches during the caucus of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms party, DPS, and it is expected that in just days NSO Chief, General Todor Kodzheykov, would announce the sanctions.
The publication quotes unnamed insider sources from the Office of the President.
Several senior officers from NSO would be seriously reprimanded, among them the Chiefs of Sectors "Mass Events" and "Parliament." They are part of Unit One which is in charge of personal security of politicians. The guards from the two sectors were supposed to guarantee not only Dogan's security, but the security of all DPS Members of the Parliament who were attending the party's Eight National Conference last Saturday.
The Chiefs of the two NSO groups that have been sent to provide security for the event at the National Palace of Culture in the capital Sofia, but let the attacker reach all the way to Dogan, will also be punished.
Dismissals are expected as well.
Kodzheykov will further inform the Consultative Council for National Security at the Office of the President about the sanctions.
Soon after the incident, President Rosen Plevneliev, announced he was calling the Council to examine security breaches on the part of NSO.
Last Saturday, police in Bulgaria detained a man after he pointed a gun at Dogan as he was delivering a speech in the capital Sofia. No shots were fired. The man was identified as Oktay Enimehmedov, a 25-year-old ethnic Turkish resident of the city of Burgas, with a previous criminal record for assault and theft.
It emerged later that the man did not actually want to kill the former leader and now Honorary Chairman of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, but to scare him.
On Sunday, Sofia City Prosecutor, Nikolay Kokinov, announced Enimehmedov will be charged with grave hooliganism and making a death threat. The Sofia Regional Court ruled Monday to keep the attacker under permanent detention.
Tags: Rosen Plevneliev, president, Todor Kodzheykov, Consultative Council for National Security, Ahmed Dogan, assassination attempt, ethnic Turkish, ethnic Turks, Movement for Rights and Freedoms, Oktay Enimehmedov, grave hooliganism, death threat, gas pistol, Prosecutor, NSO, National Security Services, Nikolay Kokinov
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