REINSTATED
Police officer Mitko Chavdarov, who was charged with assault and battery of more than one person while on duty, was reinstated by the Military Court of Appeals on November 24. On October 2, Chavdarov was ordered to pay 1000 leva to a group of Roma who claimed that he had beaten them up while on duty.
A week before, Chavdarov had come upon a group of Roma men while they were climbing a flag pole in the Boyadzjik school yard, tearing up a Bulgarian national flag while racing to the top of the pole. The next morning, Chavdarov called them to his office to make formal statements about the incident. Following that meeting, four of the Roma presented medical statements indicating that they had been assaulted in his office, an allegation that Chavdarov denied.
RECORD SPEED
Former interior minister Roumen Petkov set a speed record in the justice system after he was found not guilty on charges of revealing classified information.
On November 20, at the first and only hearing in a trial of Petkov on charges of illegally disclosing the name of an Interior Ministry agent, it took Sofia City Court a few minutes to declare Petkov not guilty.
DISCRIMINATION
Bulgarias Commission for Protection against Discrimination (CPD) has found Sofia mayor Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov guilty of discrimination. The CPD asked Borrisov to apologise to the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) for saying that the BSP was a party with no morality. Borissov made the statement in May 2008 after Georgi Andreev, mayor of Vetrino municipality in the Bourgas region along the Black Sea, elected on the GERB ticket in 2007, switched sides and joined the BSP. Borissov said he was not going to apologise and was proud of what he said.
JOURNALISTIC PLURALISM
Well-known television presenter Georgi Koritarov was fired from from private national TV channel Nova Televisias daily morning show Zdravei Bulgaria for failing to meet the principles of journalistic pluralism and for using the show for his own personal purposes, the station said in a statement on November 21. Koritarovs dismissal and the vague reasons offered by both Koritarov and Nova Televisia led to debates about to what extent journalists should be close to business people. Koritarov linked his dismissal to a report in Bulgarian-language Weekend Boulevard newspaper that accused Koritarov of blackmailing the head of Russian-owned Lukoil refinery Valentin Zlatev. The story alleged that Koritarov had asked Zlatev to buy land in Rila Mountain, for which Koritarov was going to receive a commission of millions of leva. When Zlatev refused, Koritarov started applying pressure to Zlatev though the daily show, the paper alleged. Nova Televisia said that it had received a letter from Lukoil on the issue asking for administrative sanctions against Koritarov, but Nova said that this was not the reason for the dismissal. Tensions that had built up over a long period of time had led to the firing, Nova said. Koritarov denied the allegations but confirmed that he had personal meetings with Zlatev. By November 26, Koritarov had not said whether he would take court action against Weekend for the report or against Lukoil and Zlatev for their allegations. Zlatev has made no statement about suing Koritarov. Koritarov is one of the best-known radio and TV journalists in Bulgaria. He has been involved in several public controversies of late, mainly because of his aggressive style of interviewing and for his commentaries on political matters. A few years ago, he made an on-air public admission that he had served as a secret agent of the former communist secret police, working for Bulgarias intelligence unit with a focus on former Yugoslavia and China.
