TThe story of the first – and so far only – person in Bulgaria to publicly admit he is a drug boss, has turned into a comedy 18 months after prosecutors hailed his imprisonment as a major success in the war against organised crime.

Dimitar "The Eyes" Zhelyazkov, from the Black Sea resort town of Nessebur, was jailed for four-and-a-half years in 2008 after years of media speculation about his underground activities, involving drug distribution, racketeering and weapon smuggling.

Zhelyazkov and 16 close associates were first arrested in April 2007, charged with participating in an organised drug and weapons-smuggling ring. In February 2008, Zhelyazkov confessed that he was a drug boss and pleaded guilty to all charges brought by the Bourgas prosecutors’ office. He also agreed to further co-operate with prosecutors on other investigations. So it was that Zhelyazkov became Bulgaria’s first self-confessed drug boss.

The background
For years the media had carried horrifying stories about Zhelyazkov’s past as a crime baron. When he was finally jailed, many thought that he had got his just deserts. Personal tragedy also added to the myths surrounding his life. In 2001 his wife and his brother were killed after a car bomb exploded outside their house in Nessebur. One of the most spectacular bomb blasts in Bulgaria, investigators reasoned that it was designed  to punish Zhelyazkov for his drug-dealing.

In 2005 Zhelyazkov’s name was linked to another horrifying blast that killed a two-year-old child. At the peak of the tourist season in July, a bomb exploded under the luxury SUV of former policeman Rali Penkov in the Black Sea resort town of Obzor. Penkov, who held the Obzor beach on a concession, survived the blast, which killed his wife and two-year-old daughter Maria.

Two German children were also injured, which had an extremely negative impact on Bulgaria’s tourism industry.
Investigations centred on Zhelyazkov, particularly since a few months earlier Penkov had filed, but quickly dropped, a complaint against Zhelyazkov which allegedly accused Zhelyazkov of threatening Penkov. Nothing was proved. All this managed to perpetrate an image of Zhelyazkov as an untouchable underground boss who liked to demonstrate his status by cruising around in his Lamborghini.

Model inmate
The first puzzling development after Zhelyazkov signed a plea agreement with prosecutors was why he was jailed in Nessebur’s nearby city of Bourgas, hardly a place where his reputation was unknown. He was, in fact, serving his sentence in a low security facility in the village of Zhitarovo, where prisoners have more freedom of movement.

Soon afterwards, newspapers started publishing eyewitness accounts of Zhelyazkov cavorting in the area’s nightclubs and restaurants. The media row forced prison management to reveal that he had been released for a day or so as reward for his good behaviour, in keeping with the entitlements of other prisoners.

The big scandal emerged when the head of Bourgas police,  Vassil Edrev, bumped into Zhelyazkov at the opening of a posh nightclub in Pomorie in 2008 together with a number of Bulgaria VIPs, including pop singers and politicians. Eyewitnesses told Bulgarian-language Trud daily that Zhelyazkov was escorted by a number of guards.
It turned out that he was on a two-day leave from prison, during which he had free movement,  provided he did not break the law. His previous leaves included a visit to a spa and sauna.

Following a media row about how a drug boss can enjoy such treatment, Zhelyazkov was sent to a higher security prison facility on the other side of Bulgaria, away from the public eye, in Belene on the Danube.   

On June 8 2009, a Belene prison committee decided to send Zhelyazkov to another low security prison facility, this time in Kazichene near Sofia. He was sent there on August 3 on grounds of good behaviour and because he had already served six months of his sentence and had less than five years remaining. All this would have gone unnoticed were it not for a scandal involving Zhelyazkov on August 6.

Zhelyazkov got into a fight with another prisoner at Kazichene, Stoyan Krustev, who had been sentenced for possessing drugs and weapons. As a punishment they were sent to other prisons: Zhelyazkov back to Belene and Krustev to Bobov Dol. The information about the scandal was revealed by new Deputy Justice Minister Hristo Angelov on August 12.

Particularly interesting was a revelation surrounding Belene prison committee’s decision to reward Zhelyazkov with a transfer to a low security facility. According to Angelov, who was part of the new Justice Ministry’s leadership following the July 5 elections, the committee did not know that Zhelyazkov still had other cases pending against him, charges that would have rendered him an unsuitable candidate for the transfer.

The committee was formed of 13 members (including prosecutors) but only five had the right to vote and all of them were Belene prison employees who voted unanimously in favour of Zhelyazkov’s transfer. "They probably don’t read newspapers", was Angelov’s answer to the question of why the committee had failed to take note of Zhelyazkov’s other pending cases.