Sofia City Court has again postponed proceedings in the trial of Mario Nikolov and Lyudmil Stoykov, charged with document fraud and misuse of SAPARD funds.

The new postponement was decreed on Monday, after one of the jurors was revealed to have been sent on a working trip by the Interior Ministry until March 19. Snezha Proynova, who works for the Sofia Interior Ministry, was sent on the trip by an order from Interior Chief Secretary Kalin Georgiev.

The Judge in the case said she was surprised by the order considering that the possible trial dates had been announced in advance. She announced that the trial will now resume on March 25-26.

Previously, on March 4, the trial was delayed after one of the defense lawyers failed to turn up in court, being involved in another case in Burgas.

Nikolov and co-defendant Stoykov, who were both sponsors of President Parvanov’s campaign at the last Bulgarian presidential election, face charges relating to the alleged defrauding of SAPARD European agricultural funds to the tune of EUR 7,5 M. They, and other defendants, received funding of EUR 14 M for fraudulent projects in the period 2002-2005, according to the charges brought against them.

The legal process was provoked by revelations of the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF, according to which the Bulgarians belonged to a group of 60 Bulgarian, foreign and offshore organization that had links with the previous government, led by Sergey Stanishev, and had participated in tax fraud and money laundering.

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