Chief Prosecutor approaches EU over extradition of banker Vassilev from Serbia

Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor, Ivan Geshev, has sent letters to the office of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe and to the European Committee on Crime Problems, in which he once again alerts the institutions of the difficulties in the implementation of two requests for extradition sent to the Serbian authorities concerning Bulgarian former banker Tzvetan Vassilev who has fled to Belgrade, the Prosecutor’s Office press service said on February 5.

“The absence of a final court decision of the approached competent authorities in Serbia in connection with the criminal proceeding against Vassilev conducted in Sofia raised doubts about the effective implementation of the European Convention on Extradition in respect of the obligation of the approached country to pronounce within a reasonable time", the letter says. It reminds that nearly five and a half years have passed since the first request for Vassilev's extradition was sent to the Serbian authorities, and four years and eight months since a second request was made.

A copy of the letter was also sent to the President of the European Parliament David Maria Sassoli and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in view of the future assessment regarding Serbia's readiness as an applicant to join EU and the application of the principle of the rule of law in court proceedings.

The Chief Prosecutor also wrote a separate letter to the Belgrade high court, saying that Bulgaria’s reasons for requesting Vassilev’s extradition were still valid.

"Again, we would like to point out that the criminal proceedings against Tzvetan Vassilev regarding the misappropriation of money from the CCB without are unprecedented in the history of Bulgaria’s judicial system, with a huge impact on the economy and financial stability of the country,” the letter says.

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Former banker and majority shareholder of Corporate Commercial Bank, Tzvetan Vassilev, is wanted in connection to the investigation into the collapse of Bulgaria’s fourth largest lender Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank).

Eighteen people faced court trial. They were charged as an organized crime group. According to the Prosecution, Tzvetan Vassilev was allegedly the leader of the criminal group. The trial against him proceeds in abstentia.

Vassilev is in neighbouring Serbia awaiting a court ruling on an extradition request by Bulgaria..

Corporate Commercial Bank, Bulgaria’s fourth-largest lender by assets at the time, was placed under special supervision of the Bulgarian National Bank on June 20, 2014, following a bank run. On 6th of November, 2014, the BNB Governing Council revoked CCB’s banking license.

The indictment for the siphoning off of Corporate Commercial Bank was filed by the Specialised Prosecutor’s Office on 20 July, 2018. All copies of the indictment included more than 210,000 pages. 18 people have been indicted. The charges pressed against them exceed 5,000 pages.