Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naidenov will file a court claim at the Sofia Regional Court on behalf of the state asking the court to recover some forestry land awarded to Simeon Saxe-Coburg, the country’s former monarch and former prime minister, news agencies said on November 4 2009.

Naidenov is expected to file the claim at 2pm on November 4.

Saxe-Coburg acquired the forests through the country’s post-communist restitution process, but the state forestry agency said on October 2 2009 that he had been given more than his due and that the state would go to court to recover them.

In 2003, during Saxe-Coburg's term as prime minister, Parliament decided to return the assets of the former royal family, seized by the Communist regime in 1946.

It was later alleged that during the restitution, about 452ha of forests near the town of Samokov were transferred to the former royal family with no legal basis for doing so.

Before the state forestry agency’s announcement in October, critics of Saxe-Coburg had long alleged that forests decreed to him were not lawful.

As The Sofia Echo reported earlier, Saxe-Coburg, in an interview published by Israeli Maariv newspaper on October 5 2009, referred to criticism that his motivation to return to Bulgaria in 2001 to enter politics – in that year, the former exile won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections and became prime minister – was so that he could recoup former crown property.