Sofia City Court put on hold the case against businessman Marion Nikolov and eight others accused of embezzling European Union funds under the EU's Sapard programme.

The reason was that one of the defendants, Ivan Ivanov, had registered as a candidate for Parliament at the July 5 elections on the ticket of Lider-Novoto Vreme coalition and therefore had obtained an immunity from prosecution during the 21-day long election campaign that started on June 14 2009.

This, according to the law, put on hold the entire case, making it the latest of several high-profile cases to be deferred because of elections.

Meanwhile, Lider-Novoto Vreme said in a statement that they had filed a request before the regional elections committee in Plovdiv to remove Ivanov's name from the party ticket because of the pending case against him.

According to the coalition, Ivanov had spared them the information about the case and had presented a document stating he had no previous convictions. Later, however, he used his candidacy as the reason to ask the court to put the trial on hold. "Such people don't have a place on our ticket and anyone who uses the ticket for solving their personal problems will be treated the same way," the coalition's statement said.

According to the court, however, Ivanov still featured among Lider-Novoto Vreme's candidates, hence the case had to be put on hold.

On June 17 2009, Marion Nikolov told reporters that he regretted that the case was on hold and that he had no ambitions to enter politics or support any of the political parties.

The case is based on an investigation that the European Anti-fraud Office (Olaf) started in 2006.

In July 2008, a report on Bulgaria's deficient handling of European Union funds, conducted by Olaf, said that it suspected that millions of euro were embezzled by "a criminal network made up of more than 50 Bulgarian, European and offshore companies, controlled and/or financed by [Bulgarian businessmen] Mario Nikolov and Lyudmil Stoykov, suspected of having close ties to the current Government".

On October 20 2008, the court gave a green light to the case filed by State Fund Agriculture against Nikolov and eight other defendants, including his wife while Stoykov was cleared due to insufficient evidence They are accused of tax fraud aimed at embezzling European Union funds under the EU Sapard programme managed by the fund.

According to the alleged criminal scheme, the Nikolov group, as it is often referred to in Bulgarian media, used to export old meat processing equipment out of Bulgaria to Germany, where the equipment was taken to pieces and than imported back to Bulgaria via Switzerland and Ireland, declared as brand new equipment.

For the "purchase" of this "brand-new" equipment, the Nikolov group had received Sapard funding. Hence the Fund is suing Nikolov and his co-defendants for a total of 17.8 million leva. In response to the fund's claim, Nikolov's lawyers filed a counter-claim for 26 million leva.

Nikolov has denied the accusations but a German court has already sentenced two German nationals as part of Olaf's investigation into the case.

In its July 2008 report, Olaf said that Nikolov and Stoykov had political protection, which was why they were not prosecuted. Since Stoykov was a major campaign contributor to President Georgi Purvanov's re-election bid and Nikolov has donated funds to the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), opposition parties claimed that the two enjoyed the protection of Purvanov and his former party, the BSP.