Prosecutor's Office assigns check in ruling majority politicians' property deals

The Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office announced on 22^nd of March that it had assigned the Commission for Countering Corruption and Forfeiture of Illegally Acquired Property to inspect the deals for apartments purchased in the high-end capital quarter of Iztok by politicians from the ruling majority.

The reason for the initiation of the check is signals from a non-governmental organisation, media publications, as well as the request of the Minister of Justice Tsetska Tsacheva to check how she bought her apartment on Yuri Gagarin Street.

The politicians subject to the investigation are GERB parliamentary group leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov; Justice Minister Tsetska Tsacheva; Vezhdi Rashidov, head of Parliament’s committee on culture and a former culture minister and Deputy Minister of Sport, Vanya Koleva.

The anti-corruption commission was assigned to gather information about the properties, the ownership history of each of the apartments purchased, the certificate of good standing of the sales company, to check whether the properties were declared in the relevant regional municipal offices, the payment of the sale price and the taxes and fees due, the origin of the funds for the purchase.

By a prosecutor's order, the relevant notaries will be required to provide full copies of the title deeds for each transaction. Instructions are also given to obtain explanations from each buyer as well as from the persons representing the seller, including previous relations and acquaintances, contact and initial negotiations, way of receiving information for the property advertised for sale and its price, and follow-up actions.

Each of the persons subjectto the check will be required to agree to the disclosure of bank secrecy and, in the absence of such, the procedure will be under the Law on Credit Institutions. The check regarding Tsvetan Tsvetanov will also cover the subsequent transactions concerning the properties he swapped.

The Anti-Corruption Commission will also consider the reasons for this with respect to the MP Tsvetan Tsvetanov regarding media publications on the way the amendments to the Spatial Development Act were adopted by Parliament and the connection of these amendments with the construction activity of the sales company.

Earlier, the anti-corruption commision said they had self-initiated an investigation on the same case and would check the two MPs, the Minister of Justice and the Deputy Minister of Sport.