The majority owner of Bulgaria’s insolvent Corporate Commercial Bank, Tsvetan Vasilev, has said that he is suing his country at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

“Irrespective of the outcome of those lawsuits in Strasbourg, if the court rules against Bulgaria, I won’t inflict material damage to Bulgaria,” public TV broadcaster BNT quoted Vasilev as saying on Wednesday in Belgrade, Serbia.

Vasilev added that if the court in Strasbourg ruled in his favour, he would set up a fund to compensate all those who had suffered from what he described as a coordinated attack on Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank, or KTB) and him personally.

The separate lawsuits had been filed respectively by Vasilev and his company Bromak  - the main shareholder in KTB, according to Bulgarian news daily Dnevnik.

The Belgrade High Court on Wednesday heard Vasilev in relation to an extradition request from Bulgaria. The Bulgarian prosecutors want Vasilev to be extradited from Serbia to face charges of embezzling BGN 206 M from his own bank.

Vasilev has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying that the 2014 collapse of KTB, Bulgaria’s fourth-largest lender, had been a premeditated attack launched by a Bulgarian business partner-turned-rival and supported by state institutions.

BNT also said that Vasilev didn’t deny on Wednesday Serbian media reports which claimed that he had applied for asylum in Bulgaria’s western neighbour, fearing political persecution in Bulgaria if Serbia granted the extradition request.

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