The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) suggested that a parliamentary investigation into the Kujović scandal should be carried out, mediapool.bg said.

The Kujović case shook the top levels of Bulgaria's socialist controlled Interior Ministry.

Spokesperson of the BSP Angel Naidenov said on January 8, after a session of BSP's executive bureau that the BSP had already declared its concern over the publicly announced operative methods used by the Interior Ministry in its fight against organised crime. 

Naidenov said that Interior Minister and BSP member Roumen Petkov supported the creation of a committee to examine the actions of police officers and the inter-ministry accusations of creating an "umbrella" for drug-production that followed. According to Naidenov, this way public expectations for greater transparency would be met and the necessary parliamentary control could be performed, mediapool.bg said. 

At the end of 2007 Secretary General of the Interior Ministry Iliya Iliev resigned from his position, because he had authorised an operation in which a passport was issued to Serbian drug trafficker Budimir Kujović, so he could be arrested while trying to import 4 tons of drugs into the country. The Interior Minister had information on this transport. Former National Police Service director and current acting secretary general of the Interior Ministry, Valentin Petrov, however, denied there was any connection.

Deputy director of the Razgrad police Todor Dimov, who was removed from his position because of the Kujović case, accused Valentin Petrov of having a personal interest that Kujović would not be investigated, mediapool.bg said. Dimov suggested there was a “police umbrella” protecting synthetic drugs production in the country and their export to countries in the Middle East.

In response, Valentin Petrov requested from the military prosecutor's office to investigate the statement by Dimov. Dimov was said to have been the person that, Interior Minister Roumen Petkov said, had “misled in an ugly way” Iliev to authorise the operation.

The committee should by no means be considered a sign of distrust of the prosecutor's office, BSP spokesperson Angel Naidenov commented. Member of parliament of the opposition Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), Atanas Atanassov, told Nova Televiziya (New Television) that the prosecutor's office would most probably cover Valentin Petrov. 

Atanassov, a former counter-intelligence chief, called upon Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev not to appoint Valentin Petrov as secretary general of the Interior Ministry because of the drug mafia protection accusations, mediapool.bg said.

Valentin Petrov's appointment is expected to be discussed at the first meeting of the Government for 2008. According to Atanassov, however, Petrov's loyalty to the institution and the state has to be checked.

Stanishev would now have to make a tough choice since he already expressed his readiness to appoint secretary general Valentin Petrov as suggested by Interior Minister Roumen Petkov.

President Georgi Purvanov, however, would have the final word since Valentin Petrov's appointment would depend on a decree issued by Purvanov, mediapool.bg said. It was precisely the secretary general of the Interior Ministry that would provide the co-ordination between the Interior Ministry and the new State Agency for National Security (SANS), which would be under the Government and be the main institution to fight corruption in high authority circles and organised crime.

Having in mind the close relations between Interior Minister Petkov and Purvanov and the tension between them and Stanishev over the new SANS, Purvanov would most probably appoint a secretary general of the Interior Ministry that would be convenient to both him and Petkov, mediapool.bg commented.

Atanassov said that as member of parliament he would propose to his colleagues from the parliamentary group and to all his colleagues from the opposition that SANS head Petko Sertov be called to explain what actions he had undertaken in the case at the first session of Parliament's Internal Security and Public Order Committee. Atanassov said he would also like Sertov to explain what actions SANS would undertake to investigate corruption in high authority circles, since the Interior Ministry's management had been accused of just that.

According to Mediapool information, most of the members of the Internal Security and Public Order Committee would support Atanassov's proposal to call Petko Sertov.