Bulgaria’s Dossier Commission announces another former State Security agent in the media
Bulgaria’s Dossier Commission, the body charged by statute with identifying people in certain categories of public life as having worked with the country’s communist-era secret service State Security or military intelligence, said on May 15 2013 that Antoni Georgiev, publisher of an English-language magazine, had been a State Security agent.
According to the Dossier Commission, Georgiev (50) was recruited in 1988 and worked for the Sixth Department of State Security – effectively, the political police department – as Agent Boiko. Georgiev was announced in his capacity as owner of the magazine.
The announcement is the latest by the Commission of a former agent in the Bulgarian media. Others have included Ivan Garelov (Agent Talev), Kevork Kevorkian (Agent Dimitar) and Georgi Koritarov (Agent Albert).
In an earlier check of various categories of senior staff at state-owned media, the Dossier Commission found that after 1989, employees with State Security backgrounds at Bulgarian National Television numbered 43, Bulgarian National Radio 60 and news agency BTA, 20.
Also reported by the Dossier Commission to have been State Security people were various media owners – Radosvet Radev of Darik Radio, Krassimir Uzunov of news agency Focus, BBT founder Petar Mandjukov and Standart owner Todor Batkov.
Since its inception after the act of Parliament creating it was approved in 2006, the Dossier Commission has identified State Security agents in senior positions in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Foreign Ministry, several other state departments and agencies, polling agencies, trade unions and business associations.
(Photo: Christa Richert/sxc.hu)