The head of Bulgaria's State Gambling Commission, Kaloyan Krastev, has been found guilty of beating one of his subordinates.

However, Krastev got away only with an administrative sentence – he got a BGN 2 000 fine imposed by the Sofia Regional Court.

Krastev's trial began in April 2011 after Presiyan Stoev, an employee of the State Gambling Commission, filed a suit claiming he was beaten by his boss.

Kaloyan Krastev denied the accusations but the court found him guilty based on witness testimonies and medical tests.

Krastev promised to appeal the sentence before the Sofia City Court, claiming that the Sofia Regional Court had ignored some witness testimonies while favoring others.

Stoev has told the court that before the incident, he was called up by Krastev in his office, who urged him to quit his job. When Stoev refused, Krastev started beating him. Stoev even managed to record the sound of the beating on his mobile phone.

"It is unacceptable for a civil servant to behave that way. There are witnesses who saw me leaving his office with bruises and scratches on my face," Stoev told the court.

According to Stoev, who is no longer an employee of the State Gambling Commission, Krastev purged those employees of the institution who he deemed inconvenient – dismissing a total of 24 people after he was appointed.

"I don't know if there is somebody behind him but he was boasting all the time that Finance Minister Simeon Djankov was his classmate in the Lovech Foreign Language High School," Stoev said, as cited by the Trud daily.

Bulgaria's State Gambling Commission is subordinate to the Finance Ministry.

Krastev has denied Stoev's words, and has claimed that the entire case against him was a setup.

42-year-old Krastev was appointed chair of the Bulgarian State Gambling Commission in February 2010, after his predecessor Dimitar Terziev resigned.