The Sofia Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into allegations of embezzlement against the chief executive of the State Fund Agriculture Dimitur Tadarukov, mediapool.bg reported, quoting sources from the prosecutor’s office.

He is accused of mis-spending 22 million leva of Sapard pre-accession funds. In particular, he is alleged of re-allocating the funds to another Sapard measure without a tender, an approval from an expert commission and co-ordination with the European Commission.

The probe is directly related to the investigation against Assen Droumev, the former head of Sapard payments agency. Droumev is accused of appropriating 48 million leva worth of EU funds, issued under 15 projects. He had earlier been accused of renting offices for the agency at higher-than-market prices.

The fund dismissed the allegations against Tadarukov, while Dimitur Peichev, the deputy agriculture minister and head of the programme’s monitoring commission, said the funds were re-directed under three other Sapard measures to ensure efficient absorption.

Previously, Tadarukov said re-direction of funds from one measure to another was a habitual practice whenever the original measure had no eligible projects to finance.