THREE high-ranking police officials from the Blagoevgrad police department resigned on December 7, Bulgarian-language media reported.

Interior Minister Roumen Petkov accepted the resignations of General Bogomil Yanev, head of Blagoevgrad police department; Colonel Dimitar Balev, head of the Regional police department; and of Colonel Alexander Kostov, head of the regional department of the National Service for Combating Organised Crime (NSCOC).

The resignations followed Petkov’s admission on December 7 that Angel “Chorata” Dimitrov was beaten to death in Blagoevgrad police station by five police officers on November 11.

Dimitrov had been detained that day as part of the Interior Ministry’s Operation Respect, launched last month against organised crime in the country. Police alleged that Dimitrov was a drug dealer and his death in the police station was not the result of police abuse.

On December 5, forensics professor Stoycho Radanov said in an interview with Bulgarian National Television that violence had caused the death of Dimitrov. The autopsy by Radanov had shown that Dimitrov did not die of a heart attack or drug overdose as police officials claimed, but from a blow on the head with a heavy object.

After meeting Radanov on December 7, Petkov agreed that Dimitrov was undeniably beaten and tortured, but this fact did not mean that Operation Respect was a failure and he did not blame the senior officers in Blagoevgrad for what had happened.

“Dimitrov’s death is a tragedy, but we will continue Operation Respect. I assure you that if any of the police officers broke the law, he will be punished,” said Petkov.

The same day, Dimitar Dimitrov, brother of Angel Dimitrov, told Nova Television that he was not satisfied with the resignations and sackings in the Interior Ministry.

“I have proof of corrupt police in the ministry. This is General Yanev and I can present the proof at any time,” said Dimitrov.

The general has been trading in culinary mushrooms with Greece through his mistress, and they have been gaining a lot of money from this business, Dimitrov said.

He mentioned the names of many allegedly corrupt police, such as Alexander Kostov, Miroslav Pisov, Vlado Sobakliev and Plamen Michev.

Dimitrov said that corruption extended further, to the deputy chiefs at the police departments in the southern towns of Sandanski and Petrich. He alleged that they had made phone threats against him and his family.

Dimitrov’s family had previously laid a charge against five Blagoevgrad police officers, accusing them of causing their son Angel’s death.
On December 7, Ilia Yanev told Bulgarian National Radio that there was no evidence that Dimitrov was a drug dealer and General Yanev personally had approved Dimitrov’s company to provide security services in Blagoevgrad.

“It is simple. If you have evidence that someone is a criminal, you do not grant him a permit for security services, as the head of the city’s police department has done,” Ilia Yanev said.

After Dimitrov’s death, his relatives accused the police of murdering him while he in detention.

On November 21, General Ilia Iliev, chief secretary of the Interior Ministry, defended the actions of Blagoevgrad’s police officers. Dimitrov’s arrest had “been done by the book” and his death had not been caused by police. Dimitrov had resisted arrest and that was the reason for using force, Iliev said.

The circumstances of Dimitrov’s death had already put Interior Minister Roumen Petkov in the centre of media attention after allegations were reported that five police officers had beaten Dimitrov, thus causing his death.

The tension intensified after Iliev said that Dimitrov “might have had a list of corrupt police officers”.

The first autopsy of Dimitrov’s body done in Blagoevgrad did not show signs of violence, and it was said that the cause of his death was heart attack. At that time, the Interior Ministry supported this conclusion.

On November 19, Dimitrov’s family demanded a second autopsy in Sofia, which produced a different conclusion.

The head of the Blagoevgrad police department, General Yanev, did not accept the accusations. Even after results from Radanov’s autopsy were announced, he maintained to journalists that Dimitrov died of a heart attack.

His resignation only came about as the result of an information leak from the NSCOC. On December 5, Miroslav Pisov, senior officer of the Blagoevgrad Unit for Combating Organised Crime, was dismissed after it was alleged that information from the archives had been leaked to the media. The Interior Ministry media office claimed that his dismissal had nothing to do with Dimitrov’s death.

Four days after Dimitrov’s death, General Yanev said in an interview with a Bulgarian-language newspaper that he supported the actions of his staff and Dimitrov’s death was the “logical end of the life of a criminal”.

On December, 5 Mityo Markov, deputy prosecutor general, told a Bulgarian-language newspaper that the Military Prosecution Service had launched its own investigation into Dimitrov’s case.

On an international level, the Interior Ministry scored a success last week.

Together with agents from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bulgaria’s NSCOC detained six people from Sofia and Plovdiv on December 2 who had been in possession of and who had distributed via internet files of child pornography. Police found more than 40 000 films, pictures and video clips of drugged children aged from three to 12 years. The films were made in countries of the former Soviet Union and had a cost of 40 leva a video clip and 100 leva a CD.