Lawyer declares “indirect victim” the presidential adviser on anti-corruption and his clashes with the special accusation around the chats with Plamen Bobokov, the deal with the 290 jeeps of Grisha Ganchev – the goal was to thwart Rumen Radev’s second term
“Mr. Plamen Uzunov congratulates you!”, Boyko Rashkov told police and prosecutors during a visit to Plovdiv. The story of a 20-minute telephone conversation between the interior minister and the president’s anti-corruption adviser is shared widely among the available staff.
Boyko Rashkov held a meeting with police chiefs and prosecutors from the Plovdiv District Prosecutor’s Office, but apparently an important call on GSM interrupted his words. The minister mostly answered with the laconic: “Yes, yes, yes …”. After the conversation, Rashkov addressed the audience with the words: “Mr. Plamen Uzunov congratulates you!”.
Behind the personnel shifts in the Plovdiv police, everyone
see the essential
role of the former
director of the district
management of the Ministry of Interior
and former interior minister in Rumen Radev’s first caretaker government.
His successor – Boyko Rashkov, demoted the Deputy Director of the OD of the Ministry of Interior Dimitar Sabchev and in his place appointed the current head of the First Regional Directorate Petar Todorov, entrusting him to the regional directorate of the Ministry of Interior. The reason was the arrest of the head of the Third Regional Unit Samuil Hadjiev and Atanas Kachakov from the same department.
Petar Todorov, one of the best professionals in the system, has 30 years of experience and according to his colleagues, he has enjoyed the support and trust of Uzunov since the time he headed the police in Plovdiv.
It is expected
the Presidential Adviser,
to whom probably now
the whole is entrusted
security sector
in the country, to elect in Plovdiv the new Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior. Thus, the city will be the center of the most important personnel changes in the Interior Ministry.
Plamen Uzunov has solid professional experience in the regional directorate. He started his career in 1993 as an operative in “Crimes against the Person” in the Second Police Department in Plovdiv. Then he took over the Criminal Police, headed the Second and Fifth Regional Police Departments and became the director of the OD of the Ministry of Interior.
Uzunov takes over the Ministry of Interior
Plovdiv at the time
of Prime Minister Oresharski
and that is why he is accepted here as part of the BSP’s “personnel” bank in the field of security. Uzunov also participated in the team that defeated the Komatevo gang, rules with bloody armed robberies of exchange offices in Plovdiv.
On August 12, 2015, when Rumyan Bachvarova was interior minister, Uzunov faced justice for the first time. Then a 24-year-old driver killed a man on a footpath in Plovdiv. The case was not reported and the prosecutor’s office found out about it from a TV report. The prosecutor on duty was not notified of the serious accident that ended in death. No blood sample was required, the driver Milan Divekov was released at home with the car. The prosecutor’s inspection, requested by Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov, also from Plovdiv, found that Divekov had been sanctioned as a driver 8 times, had 5 acts in force, three slips, but did not pay them, nor did the traffic police take his license.
Another 6 were found in Plovdiv
the case for 6 months with victims
on the road, not announced by the Ministry of Interior
At that time, the chief secretary of the Ministry of Interior was Georgi Kostov, who proposed disciplinary dismissal for Plamen Uzunov, but in the end the head of the regional directorate left voluntarily.
A few days ago, Georgi Kostov, who has been head of customs in recent years, was one of the first senior officials removed from Rumen Radev’s second caretaker government.
Two years after leaving the Ministry of Interior, on January 27, 2017, Plamen Uzunov was appointed Interior Minister in the first caretaker government. He and the president have known each other since the Plovdiv period of Radev’s military career. In June 2017
funny photo with Uzunov,
dressed as Hitler,
provokes GERB
to demand the resignation of the councilor, but the president passed the action of Borissov’s people in silence.
Three years later, in the summer of 2020, the presidential adviser on legal issues and anti-corruption was officially accused by the prosecutor’s office of businessman Plamen Bobokov of trading in influence – the former as the perpetrator and the latter as the instigator. Chats exchanged between them from January 2019 to May 2020 expire in the media. They refer to a decision provided to the Supreme Administrative Court before it is announced, for staff appointments in the Ruse Prosecutor’s Office, for denied citizenship per person, for which SANS claims is dangerous for national security, etc.
The two, an adviser and a businessman, were detained for 24 hours, and prosecutors and police searched offices in the presidency.
This action of Ivan Geshev
provoked Rumen Radev
to join the protests
The president came out in the square calling for “to expel the mafia from the prosecutor’s office.”
The prosecutor’s office also searched the Plovdiv home of Plamen Uzunov and his brother. A consulting contract was extended between Atanas Uzunov and a company of the Bobokovi brothers. The media again leaks a 6-page document on “Research and analysis of external and internal risks and threats threatening the corporate security of Prista Oil Holding EAD. It is valued at BGN 5,000 excluding VAT, as of June 1, 2019 for one According to the state prosecutor, Atanas Uzunov received money from businessman Bobokov for the services provided by Plamen Uzunov.
In early February 2021, the European Anti-Fraud Office – OLAF, demanded that Bulgaria return nearly 6 million euros for serious violations in a public procurement for 290 police jeeps. OLAF insists on an investigation in Bulgaria, but the specialized prosecutor’s office in Bulgaria joined this case to the investigation into trading in influence, in which Uzunov and Bobokov are accused. The only connection is that it is established that the criteria for the purchase of jeeps were lowered during the time of the acting Minister of Interior Uzunov in Radev’s first caretaker government. This gives the company of the businessman Grisha Ganchev the opportunity to win and to provide the Chinese jeeps assembled in our warehouse.
The scandal in February was revived in the first hours of the second caretaker government, when Minister Rashkov retired the main witness in the investigation with the jeep deal – the administrative secretary of the Ministry of Interior Boyko Slavchev.
In February 2021.
the court announced both arrests
– to Uzunov and Bobokov,
for illegal
The presidential adviser called the accusations of trading in influence “groundless” and saw the purpose of the attack “to harm President Radev”.
A month later – in March 2021, Uzunov and Bobokov filed two lawsuits against the prosecutor’s office under the State Liability Act, each of which filed a claim for an identical amount – BGN 26,000 each. To date, the charges against them have not been filed in court, but have not been dropped by the prosecution.
Lawyer Emilia Nedeva told BNR Uzunov and Bobokov were “indirect victims in an attack on the president and his attempt to run for another term.”
– .
