The Sofia District Court determined that PP-DB leaders Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev must pay BGN 15,000 to the auditor Dobrinka Mihailova, whom they defamed.
The saga began in September 2022, when at a briefing in front of the Sofia Central Prison, in their capacity as co-chairmen of “We continue the change”, Kiril Petkov and Asen Vassilev announced that GERB leader Boyko Borisov “should be in the building behind them” because of scandalous abuses by part of the body responsible for the audit of European projects in Bulgaria, led in the past by Dobrinka Mihailova.
Subsequently, in a video titled “This is Dobrinka. Don’t be like Dobrinka“, the PP explained the scheme, according to which the unit for auditing EU funds (at that time the Executive Agency “Audit of EU funds” under the Ministry of Finance, whose director is Mihailova) purposefully did not select for inspection projects of those close to GERB.
Soon after the briefing in question, the Ministry of Finance published a lengthy rebuttal, in which they explained that if the irregularities presented by Petkov and Vassilev had been proven, the European programs would have been stopped at the moment, because that is what the relevant European regulation provides.
Dobrinka Mihailova herself announced that she will file a lawsuit in court because of the slander, which damages her prestige as a professional and the institution where she continues to work – the Directorate of the Executive Agency “Audit of EU Funds”.
Because of the false suggestions to her that she was involved in violations with the audit of projects for millions of Euro funds, her health and emotional state worsened, it is stated in the claim to the court. The court panel accepted Mihaialova’s claims as well-founded and ruled that the requested compensation, as well as the costs of the case, should be paid to her by Vasilev and Petkov.
The decision is subject to appeal before the Sofia City Court.
A day ago it became clear that the former deputy from “There is such a people” Lubomir Karimanski also condemned Asen Vassilev for a defamatory statement. The finance minister must pay him compensation of BGN 5,000 because of an interview with “Darik” in April 2022, when Karimanski was head of the budget and finance committee in the parliament and ITN’s candidate for governor of the BNB. At that time, the PP had nominated Andrey Gyurov. Read more here.
2024-01-18 08:44:07
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