Sofia City Court acquits former PM Stanishev over losing secret documents

Sofia City Court ruled on December 16 to acquit former socialist prime minister Sergei Stanishev on charges of losing secret documents while in office as head of government.

The court ruled that prosecutors could not prove conclusively that Stanishev lost the documents, nor was it proven that the documents contained confidential information.

The case against Stanishev was filed in December 2015, specialist judiciary news website Legalworld.bg reported. That came after an investigation that went on for six years, during which the courts repeatedly dismissed the case on the grounds that Stanishev had not been formally been handed a copy of the indictment against him.

Prosecutors in turn would argue that he could not be handed a copy of the indictment is that because it has to do with secret materials, it is itself classified secret. And Stanishev, out of office, is not authorised to see classified material.

Website Mediapool commented at the time that the case against Stanishev had been marked by Catch-22 syndrome from the very beginning. The website said that prosecutors had failed to find the secret reports that Stanishev was accused of losing, and if they had found them, they would no longer be lost and his indictment would be meaningless.

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The Sofia Globe staff

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