Bulgaria’s Prosecution requested Kiril Petkov's Immunity

The Sofia District Prosecutor's Office proposed to the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria to submit a reasoned request to the National Assembly for permission to initiate criminal prosecution against Kiril Petkov - former Prime Minister and current deputy in the 49th National Assembly.

The proposal was prepared in connection with pre-trial proceedings regarding a declaration of citizenship submitted on the basis of Article 110 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria with incorrect data.

The case was initially referred to the now-defunct Specialized Prosecutor's Office. In 2021, the special unit refused to investigate the dual citizenship case of Kiril Petkov, announcing that the specialized prosecutor's office was not competent to deal with the case and sent it to the District Prosecutor's Office.

The district prosecutor's office today indicated that from the evidence collected in the course of the investigation, it can be concluded that the declaration submitted by Petkov to the President of the Republic of Bulgaria contained a hidden truth - the existence of dual citizenship, and a confirmed falsehood: that the person meets the conditions for the election of national representatives.

Two years ago, the prosecutor's office announced that there was no way to investigate Petkov for his citizenship declaration, because there is no such crime in the Criminal Code.

Then Petkov, as Minister of Economy in the interim government, was investigated for false declaration because he did not indicate that he also had Canadian citizenship.

At the time, the head of the Specialized Prosecutor's Office, Valentina Madzharova, explained that the state prosecution had always reminded of the imperfections of the law and that...