Delyan Peevski

Democratic Bulgaria supports the steps taken by caretaker Minister of Justice Yanaki Stoilov for the dismissal of Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev.

Bulgaria's Supreme Prosecutor's Office of Cassation requested from the US Department of State additional information on the case of imposing sanctions on three Bulgarian nationals under the Magnitsky Act, BTA learned on Thursday from  the prosecuting magistracy.

Vassil Bojkov, oligarch in exile and head of the Bulgarian Summer party. Source: Facebook/VassilKrumovBojkov.

The Finance Ministry said the companies and individuals might be affected in the near future by the US's Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which freezes the assets of people linked to corruption and human rights abuses and bars them from entering the US.

European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi arrives in Bulgaria on Thursday (10 June) for her first mission abroad since the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) was launched at the start of the month. The visit is rather surprising, because no program has been announced.

To avoid further sanctions, banks do not have to conduct transactions with individuals and companies blacklisted and sanctioned by the US.

This was recommended by caretaker Prime Minister Stefan Yanev at the beginning of the Security Council meeting he convened. Sanctions under the Magnitsky Act and the work of special services are the two topics on the of the Council's agenda.

The US sanctions under the Magnitsky Act imposed on six Bulgarians, including Delyan Peevski and Vasil Bozhkov, will have an impact on European policy approach to Bulgaria. This is what MEP Radan Kanev ("Democratic Bulgaria"/EPP) says in an interview with the toest.bg website.

Peevski dismissed the designation as "an absolutely inadmissible, biased act that is at odds with the spirit and meaning of the Magnitsky Act.

The Prosecutor's Office announced today that it is launching an investigation into the information disclosed by the State Department of the United States on corruption activities involving Vasil Bozhkov, Delyan Peevski, Ilko Zheliazkov, Alexander Manolev, Petar Haralampiev and Krasimir Tomov.

Bulgarian media mogul and MP from the centrist Movement for Rights and Freedoms, Delyan Peevski, during a meeting at parliament in Sofia, May 2013. Photo: EPA/STR.

The first man named is oligarch-in-exile, art dealer and former football and gambling boss Vassil Bojkov, alias The Skull, who fled the country to Dubai in January 2020 amid numerous charges.

The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) issued a statement this morning responding to yesterday's news concerning the sanctions against its member and longtime MP Delyan Peevski imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury Department.