A total of 25 journalists and other public officials have been announced as collaborators of former communist secret services by the Commission in charge of declassification of communist-era secret service archives on October 8 2008.
According to the law on the opening of communist-era secret service archives, the commission has to check the past of a number of public officials, starting with current and former presidents, prime ministers, cabinet ministers, deputy ministers, members of parliament, magistrates, mayors, regional governors and other people in public positions.
This time around, the commission did its check on people who have been in the management of state Bulgarian news agency BTA or have been on the staff of the Council of Electronic Media (CEM).
Of the 71 senior officials who have worked for the BTA in the past 19 years, 20 were linked to the former communist State Security secret police. Of them the most popular name is the one of journalist Ivo Indjev, who was head of BTA in 1990/93. According to the commission, he has worked under the code name “Ivailo” as an agent to the foreing intelligence branch of State Security in 1983/89, for which he had been paid for.
Indjev has graduated from Moscow State University and prior to 1989 he was BTA's correspondent in Beirut during the civil war in Lebannon.
After he left BTA, he worled for a number of media outlets, including as the host of a weekly political show on bTV, Bulgaria's first private free-to-air TV channel, owned by News Corp. He resigned after expressing his discontent with the way bTV reacted to his decision to publish anonymous information about President Georgi Purvanov, which accused the President of owning a luxury apartment in Sofia. The information was published in 2005 in the light of the presidential elections.
Purvanov, who was also named as a collaborator of State Security under the name “Gotse”, denied the information and Indjev left bTV, reportedly under pressure from the station's management. Currently, he is deputy chairperson of the electronic media ethics committee. So far he has not made a comment on the commission's findings about his communist-time past.
A total of four of BTA's former general managers were linked to communist services, the commission said: Indjev, Milen Vulkov, Boyan Traikov and and Georgi Grouev.
Vulkov currently chairs the Union of Bulgarian Journalists. He was quoted by Bulgarian-language media sa saying that it was a matter of prestige for him to have worked for Bulgaria's national security and his worked has never harmed anyone.
Of the 56 people who have worked at CEM, five have had links with the communist secret services.
The commission is yet to announced the results of the check within the past of those who have taken high offices in the Bulgarian National Television, the Bulgarian National Radio and other electronic media.
In its first year after it was formed in 2006, the nine-member commission has checked a total of 47 010 Bulgarians who were candidates or holders of public posts. Of these, a total of 1669 people were announced to have been former collaborators, agents and employees of the communist secret services.
The list features the names of former prime minister Zhan Videnov, cabinet minsters and incumbent President Georgi Purvanov. Most people said they were surprised to see their names on the commission’s list, claiming they never knew communist services had them on file.
Some said they had worked in the best interest of the Bulgarian state. Such was the explanation of Purvanov, who worked as a history researcher.
