Bulgarian Deputy Minister named as State Security agent to sue Dossier Commission
Bozhan Stoyanov, Deputy Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism in Bulgaria’s current caretaker cabinet, named by the Dossier Commission as having been an agent for the country’s communist-era State Security secret service, has said that he will sue the commission.
The commission, created by statute in 2006 to examine records and announce whether anyone in certain categories in public life worked for communist Bulgaria’s secret services, announced on April 10 that Stoyanov had been agent “Mladenov”. According to the Dossier Commission, Stoyanov was registered as an agent in July 1988 at the age of 25 when he was with State Security at the Sofia city police department.
The statement by the Commission, which announced its check into all members of the caretaker cabinet and deputy ministers, was challenged immediately by Stoyanov’s ministry, which said that he had been checked in 2008 and had been issued a certificate that he had not been affiliated with State Security.
On April 11, Prime Minister Marin Raykov said that there was no evidence that Stoyanov had agreed to collaborate with State Security and he had been named solely on the basis of a recruiting card. Stoyanov had been cleared in 2008 and nothing in his past had changed since then, Raykov said. The Prime Minister added that he reserved the right, if firm evidence emerged, to change his position.
The following day, Dossier Commission head Evtim Kostadinov said that the records included Stoyanov’s recruitment card, registry card and an Interior Ministry file. Kostadinov said that the commission had received the Interior Ministry’s full log files in 2010. Obviously, in 2008 someone had misled the commission, Kostadinov said.
In an April 13 statement, Stoyanov said that he disagreed with the commission’s findings and would seek redress in court.
The decisions of the commission were subject to judicial control and so he would challenge its decision in the Supreme Administrative Court, Stoyanov said. He would lodge the court action as soon as this was technically permissible, he said.
(Photo: Christa Richert/sxc.hu)
