A report published by the committee on the opening of the archives of the former communist State Security police and armed forces showed that 44 former agents of the communist-era services had held management positions at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS).

For the first time in the history of the committee, more than 10 per cent of the records examined were former agents, committee chairperson Evtim Kostadinov said. The committee had examined the records of 348 people who had occupied senior positions at BAS since 1989, Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik said.

Among those pointed out as former agents were BAS deputy chairperson Konstantin Kossev, member of the board of sciences Ivan Havezov, the head of the Institute for History of Sciences Georgi Markov and the heads of another eight institutes at BAS.

"It should be noted that all of the former agents currently hold active positions at BAS," committee member Ekaterina Boncheva was quoted by Dnevnik as saying. Many former agents had worked for the technical-investigative services of the First Chief Directorate (FCD), Boncheva said.

An assessment of a specific agent from 1986 read "the result of our conversation, we discussed the ways in which BAS could help solve operational problems."

"The question here is how the FCD looked at BAS; as the academy of sciences or as its subordinate," Boncheva said.

The committee on the opening of archives by law can only examine records of senior staff.

Asked how high she expected the ratio of former agents in the lower ranks of BAS would be, Boncheva replied with by asking "and what do you think the total percentage would then be?"