Sat, Feb 11 2012

Recently resigned deputy interior minister accused of offering a bribe

Wed, Jun 17 2009 15:48 CET

byPetar Kostadinov

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Recently resigned deputy interior minister accused of offering a bribe

Photo: Julia Lazarova

Raif Moustafa, who resigned on June 14 2009 from the post of deputy interior minister, was set free on 10 000 bail by the court, Bulgarian news agency Focus said on June 17 2009.

Earlier the same day, prosecutors officially accused him of offering a bribe to a public official which, if proven, could see him jailed for up to 10 years and fined 15 000 leva.

Moustafa refused to talk to the media on his way out of the Sofia investigation building, Focus said.

Moustafa resigned two days after the head of the Agriculture Ministry's Executive Agency Fisheries and Aquacultures, Marin Dimitrov, refused a 100 000 leva bribe, after private terrestrial broadcaster bTV said Moustafa had allegedly tried to pressure Dimitrov into accepting the bribe.

"Regardless of my certainty that I am innocent, I have resigned as deputy minister and I am asking the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) not to include my name in its elections list," Moustafa said in his resignation statement, as quoted by Dnevnik daily.

Moustafa was appointed deputy minister from the quota of the MRF, one of the three parties in the ruling coalition.

Dimitrov was offered the bribe by Rossen Marinov, co-owner of Avtoinzhenering company, who was arrested on June 11 in a joint raid by prosecutors and the State Agency for National Security.

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