Bulgaria's Files Commission, a special panel investigating the Communist regime secret files, announces Wednesday the results of its probe at the Public Financial Inspection Agency, ADFI.

Five high-ranking employees of ADFI have been agents or collaborators of the former Communist State Security (DS). 209 individuals have been checked. They have worked at the Agency between the beginning of the 90s until today.

The five are:

The Director of the Sofia Directorate of the State Financial Control, DFK, predecessor of ADFI, Angel Tserovski, the Head of DFK in the southern city of Haskovo between 1996 and 1998, Anastas Arnaudov, the Head of the Agency in the western city of Pernik in 2001, Vene Mihaylov, the Head of a Directorate of the Agency's Headquarters in Sofia from 2002 until 2005, Tatyana Hubenova-Delisivkova, and the Head of a DFK in the northwestern city of Montana from 1996 to 1998, Todor Petrov.

The Files Commission has exposed as state security agents and collaborators a number of officials working in State institutions and major agencies, including the State Agency for National Security, Agriculture State Fund and the Commission for Protection of Personal Data.

The blacklist of former state security agents and collaborators 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.

The State Agency for National Security (DANS), the most prominent among those to be targeted by the files commission, was set up as an institution by former Socialist Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev himself by pooling together three previously existing counter-intelligence services.

It started operating on January 1, 2008, and has managed to generate a number of scandals ever since – including the spying on leading journalist (i.e. the Galeria case) and the missing top secret reports – a case under which Stanishev himself is facing charges of mishandling classified information.

At the end of 2010 the Files Commission revealed that almost half of Bulgaria's ambassadors abroad, in a number of key countries – from the UK to Russia and China, had been collaborators of the former State Security Service, stirring a row between the cabinet of the ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, GERB, party and President, Georgi Parvanov.

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