Brakes on Bulgarian MP’s car tampered with
Police in Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia are investigating after Reformist Bloc MP Martin Dimitrov said that the brakes in his car had been cut.
Dimitrov told reporters that the incident could be connected either with his campaign to establish the truth about the draining of failed Corporate Commercial Bank or his campaign against high fuel prices in Bulgaria.
Forensic specialists from the city police were examining the car. A pre-trial investigation has been started.
Dimitrov said that his wife had had difficulty parking in front of their house. He had taken the car and was surprised when he pressed the brake pedal and it sank straight to the floor, with no effect.
“I drove straight to the service garage. They called me, worried, and sent me photos. They said that someone had deliberately and maliciously cut a metal tube from which the brake fluid leaked out,” he said.
Dimitrov said that he had immediately contacted Roumyana Buchvarova, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister.
Valeri Simeonov, co-leader of the Patriotic Front, another minority partner in the governing coalition, said that if the car had been on the motorway at high speed, “it’s certain death, so this should not be underestimated. The bad thing is that such crimes are difficult to solve”.
Simeonov agreed that behind the incident could be Dimitrov’s initiatives regarding Corporate Commercial Bank or the alleged fuel cartel.
“I have no personal enemies, no business, no loans. The only thing that I suspect is that people who are involved with the draining of CCB or people who do not like the suspicions we have expressed about a cartel in the fuel market feel affected. Nothing else seems logical,” Dimitrov said.
Along with Reformist Bloc MP Petar Slavov, Dimitrov has been campaigning for information about people and companies involved in draining CCB be made public.
CCB was Bulgaria’s fourth-largest lender. At the bank’s request, central Bulgarian National Bank suspended CCB’s operations in June 2014. The central bank withdrew CCB’s banking licence in November 2014. In July 2015, the Sofia Appellate Court ruled that CCB had been bankrupt as of the day that it requested central bank special supervision in June 2014.
