Within 20 days, Ahmed Dogan, the leader of the junior partner in the ruling coalition the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), will be summoned for questioning by Sofia prosecutors. The news was announced by Sofia prosecutor Roman Vassilev on November 18 2008.

According to Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik, Dogan will be questioned in relation to the interview Kerim Karaali, a former MRF official, gave to private terrestrial broadcaster Nova Televisiya on November 14 2008. Karaali had said that the MRF and Dogan had a business information centre in the late 1990s, when the party was in opposition, that served as a source of financing for the the MRF.

The centre helped business "get around" in Bulgaria. Karaali said that the party had served as an intermediary in an oil deal between Russia's Gazprom and Turkey. On November 17, Yordan Yordanov, who said that he had headed the business centre from 1995 to 1999, told Bulgarian-language Trud daily that the centre had served as the link between the MRF and businesses, but denied it had been involved in the Gazprom deal.

Dogan and the rest of the party leadership denied the accusations and asked the authorities for a check. It seems that now this will happen, according to Vassilev.

As an MP, Dogan has immunity from prosecution, which does not apply, however, when authorities are launching a probe, not an official investigation. Such a probe simply means gathering information, that being the reason why Vassilev was confident there would be no problems talking to Dogan and all the other people mentioned by Karaali. The probe is supposed to end within 20 days, Vassilev said.

In other news, the other public accusation against Dogan's party, coming from the right-wing party in opposition the Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (DSB), was firmly denied by current and former Interior Ministers.

DSB has been accusing the MRF of corruption, claiming that police has started an investigation on the issue in 2006, under the code-name "Liana", which was put to a hold without any legal justification.

On November 18 2008 Interior Minister Mihail Mikov told private broadcaster bTV that there was such an investigation, but it did not refer to any MRF official. At the same time Mikov was on bTV, his predecessor Roumen Petkov, who was the minister when the "Liana" probe was put on hold, said the same thing.

According to the DSB, the MRF used to take between 20 to 30 per cent of every project approved by the two ministries controlled by the MRF: the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs and the Agricutlure Ministry.