Borissov says he has lodged court action against TV boss-turned-politician for slander
Boiko Borissov, leader of the opposition centre-right GERB party and former prime minister, has said that he has lodged court action against Nikolai Barekov, best known as boss of TV7 and who now has political ambitions, for “a series of insults and lies he has spoken in public about me”.
Borissov said this in a Facebook post after the most recent incident, in which Barekov alleged that Borissov and Roumen “The Pasha” Nikolov had ordered his murder, and ahead of a planned November 7 news conference at which, Barekov telegraphed, he would disclose offshore holdings by Borissov.
Borissov said that he was demanding damages of 10 000 leva (about 5000 euro) from Barekov. The GERB leader said that he would donate the money to the needy.
Former reporter Barekov used to be seen as close to Borissov in past years, but some months ago the media group of which TV7 is a part – and which is owned by the family of which controversial figure Delyan Peevski is a scion – turned against Borissov and GERB. While that media group has been hostile to the current continuing daily anti-government protests, Barekov has been on an odyssey around Bulgaria to promote his “Bulgaria without Censorship” movement.
Barekov repeatedly recently has said that he will be Bulgaria’s next prime minister. His targets previously also have included President Rossen Plevneliev, although recent unconfirmed Bulgarian-language media reports quoted Barekov as saying that the President should be “left alone”.
Borissov said that he hoped that civil and criminal penalties (in Bulgaria, slander is a crime) against Barekov would “educate” the would-be politician.
“In politics, insults do not achieve results,” Borissov said.
(Photo: European People’s Party)