Sotir Tsatsarov

The Prosecutor's Office has indicted Rumen Ovcharov on charges of abuse of office because, while he was Economics and Energy Minister, he gave permission to the director of the Bobov dol mines to sign a contract with a trade enterprise for the extraction of coal. This was made clear at a briefing of the Prosecutor's Office.

A majority of the Supreme Judicial Council has authorised the representative of the Council Dimitar Uzunov to insist on the abolition of European monitoring of the judicial system.

Uzunov will discuss the issue as early as Friday with the Deputy Secretary General of the European Commission Paraskevi Michou.

The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office has slapped the mayor of Plovdiv with an indictment on charges of abuse of office that allegedly inflicted BGN 1 M in damage on municipal coffers.

Former Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Traycho Traykov was indicted in December on charges of abeyance, the prosecuting authority has confirmed.

Rumyana Arnaudova, Bulgarian Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov's spokesperson, has refused to elaborate, but has added more information will be made available on Tuesday, according to news website Dnevnik.bg.

The number of fatalities after the incident in Hitrino in northeastern Bulgaria has increased to seven, authorities say.

More than two dozen people have been left injured.

On Saturday morning, cisterns full of liquefied petroleum gas and propylene went off the rail tracks and crashed into buildings in Hitrino, with one of them subsequently exploding.

Bulgarian Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov has spoken out against a move of the country's election authorities to declare "non-binding" a referendum on the election system of the country.

Turnout in the national poll, conducted in November, fell short of just over 12 000 votes that would have made its result obligatory.

Outgoing Defense Minister Nikolay Nenchev has expressed concern at "secret information" that Bulgaria services may have obtained by wiretapping his convesations.

He has accused the authorities responsible for "unfounded wiretapping of high-profile statesmen" of having adopted a "practice of a totalitarian past that has been denied by the Bulgarian society."

Bulgarian Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov will meet popular talk show host Slavi Trifonov on Monday to discuss the latter's claims of violations in the referendum held as months.

Trifonov, whose show launched the three-issue referendum (initially with six questions), has called into question the legitimacy of electoral authorities' decision that the poll is non-binding.

Sofia City Prosecutor's Office is preparing an indictment against Health Minister Moskov in relation to the vaccines scandal which took place at the beginning of 2016.

Two of Moskov's deputies will also be indicted. Moscov has been summoned to appear before the prosecution next week.

Scuba divers retrieved the fake 500-euro notes, which added up to around 12 million euros, from the Mechka dam in southern Bulgaria, the prosecution announced in Plovdiv on Tuesday.

Three men have been arrested in relation to the case after a special operation carried out by Bulgaria's Specialised Prosecutor's Office, the State Agency for National Security, DANS, and the police.