А special panel, investigating Bulgaria's communist-era police files, has announced that forty four members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) have been state security agents and collaborators.

The names of Konstantin Kosev, BAS deputy chair, Ivan Havezov, member of BAS Board of Directors, Georgi Markov, head of the History Institute and heads of more than eight institutions within BAS were added on Tuesday to the blacklist that the so-called Files Commission has been preparing since its establishment more than two years ago.

“This is the first time that former state security agents and collaborators account for more than 10% of the members of one Bulgarian institution,” the chair of the files commission Evtim Kostadinov commented.

The blacklist already features Socialist President Georgi Parvanov, MPs, former constitutional judges, supreme magistrates, investigators, members of parliament, prominent and well-known former and current Bulgarian journalists.

The files of the former Committee for State Security are a thorny issue in Bulgaria, especially when it comes to the past of high-ranking officials.

Bulgaria's communist-era security service is believed to have remained potent after the fall of communism with the ex-operatives closely linked to the political and business establishment.