Former prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg has rejected media reports implicating him in alleged corruption involving his cousin, Victor Emmanuel, and Italian businessman Pierpaolo Cerani.

At a June 20 news conference at National Movement Simeon II headquarters, the former prime minister denied having asked for money in exchange of securing Victor Emmanuel’s and Cerani’s participation in Bulgarian hospital and telecommunication projects.
Saxe-Coburg said that the NMSII did not receive funds for the party’s 2001 election campaign from Cerani.

However, Saxe-Coburg said that he had accepted hospitality from Cerani on some occasions, saying that he saw nothing wrong with this.

He said that the Bulgarian-language media had blown the affair out of proportion and had relied on unconfirmed reports from Italy.

At the time that The Sofia Echo went to press, Saxe-Coburg was not considered an accused in the case.

According to Italian law, his presence in the list of suspects did not imply guilt, not did it require Italian authorities to send him official information about specific allegations.

On June 20, Bulgarian authorities asked Italy for specific information on the extent of Saxe-Coburg’s alleged participation in the purported corruption.

On the same day, Italian magistrate Alberto Januzzi, who was examining the allegations, said that further developments in the investigation would not be known for a week, when the preliminary round of interrogations was expected to end.

On June 21, Italian president Giorgio Napolitano ordered an investigation into Januzzi.

Saxe-Coburg did not comment on claims that the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was behind the allegations and wanted to slander his name before the presidential elections scheduled to be held in Bulgaria in autumn. The NMSII has not yet made clear which candidate it will be supporting in the election.

Saxe-Coburg was also reticent about the effect the scandal might have on his party and Bulgaria’s progress towards membership of the European Union. Pending further decisions by EU bodies, Bulgaria is provisionally scheduled to join the EU on January 1 2007.
He said that the NMSII, which had planned to announce a candidate for president within days, had now decided not to do so until the controversy cleared.

Victor Emmanuel was arrested on June 17 in connection with suspected alleged involvement in corruption, forgery, and organising prostitution. His 2000-page arrest warrant was compiled over two years and mentioned Saxe-Coburg’s name. Other allegations against Victor Emmanuel were reported to include shooting a man, illegally owning and carrying weapons, and alleged involvement in international arms trafficking in the 1970s and 1990s.

Prime Minister and BSP leader Sergei Stanishev, speaking after a June 20 meeting of the executive bureau of the BSP Supreme Council, said that the scandal affected not only the NMSII but the entire ruling coalition. The coalition, in power since August 2005, is made up of the BSP, the NMSII, and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.

“I am left with the impression that we live in a country of scandals. Even after the innocence of a person is proven, the doubts and the aftertaste of it remain, which is not a good national tradition with us,” Stanishev said.

He said that speculation that the BSP was involved in the affair was without foundation.

The official position of the NMSII was that it did not doubt the truthfulness of the information contained in the report, since it came from an independent judiciary.

On June 20, right-wing opposition party the Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (DSB) proposed a detailed action plan that Bulgaria should follow in the wake of what they said was an unprecedented ordeal for Bulgarian institutions.

The BSB said that the corruption commission should hear out Saxe-Coburg on matters of the funding of NMSII; the commission on homeland security and order should investigate people trafficking between Bulgaria and Italy and hear former and current interior ministers Georgi Petkanov and Roumen Petkov, and former Interior Ministry chief secretary Boiko Borissov; the Justice Ministry should present Italy with government documents related to the project for the hospital; the government should  also immediately call back former chief prosecutor Nikola Filchev from Kazakhstan, because he had deliberately delayed reporting alleged corruption in the hospital project; there should also be a reinvestigation of the property dealings of Saxe-Coburg, especially about the Vrana palace, which he had tried to sell quickly because he was not convinced that the land was legally attained.