Prosecutor fired from team investigating Bourgas terrorist attack for giving extensive media interview
A prosecutor who gave a Bulgarian-language daily an extensive interview disclosing details of the investigation into the July 2012 suicide bombing terrorist attack on a group of Israel tourists at Bourgas Airport has been fired from the investigating team.
The interview given by Stanelia Karadzhova to daily 24 Chassa, published on January 3 2012, outraged Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov. Karadzhova gave the interview without permission from the prosecutor supervising the investigation.
The announcement of Karadzhova’s dismissal came soon after Interior Ministry chief secretary Kalin Georgiev, accompanied by senior Bulgarian police and anti-terrorist officials, departed for a three-day visit to Israel to compare notes on the investigation into the Bourgas attack, in which five Israelis and a Bulgarian died.
It appeared that Karadzhova had been dismissed last week but the announcement was made only on January 7.
Top Bulgarian government figures have been tight-lipped about the investigation. Unlike Israel, which has laid the blame for the terrorist attack on Hezbollah and Iran, Bulgaria has declined so far to point fingers, saying that it wants sufficient evidence before doing so.
Soon after Karadzhova’s interview was published, Georgiev said that she had harmed the investigation and Interior Minister Tsvetanov said that he was outraged by her actions. Officials have indicated that the assertions made in the Karadzhova interview are not fully accurate.
There is also serious concern about her having disclosed the name of one of the alleged accomplices.
President Rossen Plevneliev has convened a meeting of the Consultative Council on National Security, to be held on January 17. Progress in the investigation into the terrorist attack at Bourgas Airport is expected to be on the agenda.
