Before Supreme Judicial Council, Prosecutor General denied having made recordings of colleagues, magistrates and politicians

The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) accepted as admissible and complete the first proposal of six members of the prosecutors' college for early dismissal of the Prosecutor General. Ivan Geshev told the Council that he could not have committed an offence because on 1 May, when an explosion went off next to the car of the Prosecutor General while he was travelling, his functions were being performed by his deputy and head of the National Investigation Service, Borislav Sarafov.

Today, May 25, the SJC refused to hear Sarafov and Geshev's other deputies on the signal that the Prosecutor General had recorded his conversation with SJC member, Yordan Stoev. However, Geshev answered all questions on the case and said that he did not record his conversations with Stoev, other magistrates or politicians.

Prosecutor General in a statement to SJC: I have not committed any breach of my duties

Geshev's thesis before the Supreme Judicial Council was that the first motion of six members of the prosecutors’ college of the SJC for the termination of his mandate was made under political pressure. He said that as soon as the proposal was submitted he was talked to to resign.

"An attempt was made to intimidate me with a recording of conversations, in order to confirm that I would resign, the recording is of me but it is not made by me," he said.

Geshev suggested that a closed sitting be held, in which he would bring out more data on political pressure and dependencies, but the caretaker justice minister countered that everything should be public.

"I think it's high time we disclose the truth in general about everything that's going on and I insist that this should be in the institutions that are called to resolve these disputes. One of those institutions is the SJC, today we begin. This is where the issues should be resolved - not with press conferences, not with recordings, not with chats, not with gossip," said Krum Zarkov, caretaker Minister of Justice.

According to Geshev, there is evidence of dependencies that prevent the signatories of the motion for his removal from even participating in the discussion of its eligibility.

"I request the recusal of the six members who have submitted the motion and will give detailed arguments for my reasons. Mr Stoev said that this was done on the orders of GERB," Geshev said.

"I would like to state categorically that I will not make one, as I believe it does not enter into this procedure,“ said Yordan Stoev, a member of the SJC, prosecutors’ college.

Kalina Chapkanova, Gergana Mutafova, Georgi Kuzmanov and Svetlana Boshnakova also refused to recuse themselves. The request of the Prosecutor General that the petitioners indicate exactly which powers he had violated was rejected. The motion was accepted as admissible. During the sitting, Ivan Geshev was handed the second motion for early dismissal.

The Supreme Judicial Council refused to hear Borislav Sarafov and the other deputy chief prosecutors on the signal of the head of the National Investigation Servcie that chief prosecutor, Ivan Geshev, had recorded his conversation with Yordan Stoev from the prosecutors' college. Only the Prosecutor General responded to the questions. He stated that he had not recorded his conversations. However, he confirmed that the distributed recording of the conversations was authentic and suggested that either he had been eavesdropped on or a participant in the conversation had made it. He explained that a flash drive with the recording was given to an employee in his administration on Stoev’s behalf.

The hearing ended without a decision by the Supreme Judicial Council.

Images by BGNES, BTA