Close to 40 people who hold, or previously held, top leadership positions at three of Bulgaria’s universities had been agents or collaborators with the country’s communist-era State Security, according to disclosures by the Dossier Commission on March 14 2012.
 
The commission checked a total of more than 400 people at Sofia University, the University of Economics in Bulgaria's Black Sea city of Varna, and the University of Library and Information Technology.
 
Those checked were current and former rectors, vice-rectors, deans, deputy deans, and directors and heads of departments.
 
Of those identified at Sofia University, most were from the faculties of philosophy and of Slavonic Studies. Valeri Stefanov, a former dean of Slavonic Studies, was a State Security agent.
 
Tencho Doundov, dean of the law faculty from 2006 to 2011, had been a State Security staff member. So had Chavdar Hristov, a deputy dean in the faculty of journalism and mass communications.
 
The vice-dean for international affairs at the law faculty from 2007 to 2011, Plamen Pantev, had been a part-time employee of the secret services.
 
Milko Petrov, head of the communications and public relations department in the faculty of journalism and mass communications since 2007, had been a State Security informant, the Dossier Commission said.
 
Dimitar Kirov, head of department in the theology faculty from 2004 to 2008, had been an agent code-named Anton.
 
The deputy dean in charge of education and international projects in the theological faculty from 2009 to 2011, Ivan Krustanov, had been an agent for State’s Security’s sixth department.
 
Georgi Kapriev, head since 2007 of the history of philosophy department in the philosophy faculty, was a former State Security agent, the commission said. So was the deputy dean in charge of international affairs in the philosophy department from 2003 to 2011, Dimitar Denkov.
 
Some academics had been identified already in the course of other checks by the Dossier Commission, including historians Georgi Bakalov and Hristo Matanov.
 
The percentage of people at the university who had worked for State Security was, at 10 per cent, about the average among the institutions checked so far by the Dossier Commission.

Of the 24 people checked at the University of Library and Information Technology, two were identified as former agents, including rector Stoyan Denchev, code-name Simeonov, and former vice-chancellor Ivan Belchev.
 
At the Varna University of Economics, where 65 people were checked, former dean Apostol Apostolov was identified as Agent Nasko and current dean Marin Neshkov as Agent Murgash.
 
In five years, the commission has examined the files of more than 113 000 people and found 6377 to have been associated with State Security. Only 5782 of these names have been disclosed publicly because of restrictions imposed by the act of Parliament under which the Dossier Commission operates.