Bulgaria's Agriculture Minister Nihat Kabil was interrogated more than three hours on Tuesday at the service for organized crime combat over allegations of SAPARD funds embezzlement.

The only thing Kabil said after going out of the building was that he had answered all of the questions and added that the SAPARD and all other funds are a serious problem for the country.

The European Commission will send a harsh letter to Bulgaria very soon for dealing with the funds issue in specific timeline. The minister refused to say whether he knew about the two unprofitable contracts, which the former executive of the fund Assen Drumev had signed previously. He was charged with signing two unprofitable contracts, thus bringing loss of BGN 1 M to the fund. Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev is soon expected to decide who will replace Drumev, who was dismissed from his post on March 16, Minister Kabil added.

Kabil also refused to comment whether these two contracts were indeed unprofitable, because answering such questions was "breaching the investigation".

The agriculture minister has been consistently denying the possibility of misusing funds under the EU program, as claimed by local media reports.

Last year's data of the Interior Ministry however shows that misappropriation of SAPARD funds has defrauded the state budget of nearly BGN 500,000.

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