Dear viewers of the brave and decent Nova TV; Dear listeners of Radio Nova Evropa (Radio New Europe), heir to the traditions of the close to my heart Radio Free Europe; Citizens of Bulgaria, who watch me at this moment:

All of you expect of me to give you one of the most important answers in my life. I have to do this publicly and openly because throughout my 16 years of journalistic experience, I have always followed the principles of democracy, openness and truth. The answer I am supposed to give now is the answer of the question whether I was a collaborator of the former State Security (SS) and in what position. In order to give you a complete answer I want to tell you some details. 

I graduated from the 35th Russian Language High School. At that time, this school was a real intellectual centre where the Russian culture was of real value. It was a school where words like “patriotism”, “internationalism” intertwined and the communist idea and the Soviet Union were more than secret words.    

I was brought up in a family of a father whose communist youth was the most beautiful example in life for me. I perceived this idea as something personal and profound. 

In 1977 I finished my high school education and I had to go to the army. I was assigned to the Stroitelni Voiski (the former Construction Army Forces). Before that I had heard that atrocities happened in the army, but the atrocities that I had to put up with were beyond my imagination. In order to save myself from these atrocities, I started faking fainting. I asked my father to help me save myself, and he did. I entered the military hospital where the military doctors told me that there was a possibility to diagnose me in a way that could enable my discharge from the army on medical grounds. To this end, I had to have a very painful spinal tap and one of the doctors had to interfere with the machine so that it would register data showing epilepsy.            

This diagnosis was the reason for my split with my first high school girlfriend, whose family had convinced her that there was no prospect in us remaining together. My girlfriend’s name was Vanya Dimitrova Stoyanova and her father was Interior Minister. In those days, it was impossible for a man with such a diagnosis to go and study at university. That was why when I was admitted to Sofia University to study Slavonic Philology with the Serbo-Croatian language, I hid the fact that I “had epilepsy”.

I started my university studies with great expectations that finally I was going to find my purpose in life and that I would soon heal from the memory that I could not stand the atrocities in the army and had to leave it in a deceitful way. This fact caused a deep feeling of guilt in me, a guilt towards Bulgaria, and I was hoping that some day I would get the chance to rehabilitate my name. In addition to Serbo-Croatian, I started studying the Chinese and Albanian languages.    

One morning the telephone rang and I was asked to go to have a talk with an officer from State Security. The ultimatum had no double meaning. State Security knew about the fake diagnosis and I had to choose: either my beloved father would be fired and I would be sent to jail for malingering and evading military service, or, as it was put to me “to choose to be useful to Bulgaria” by collaborating with State Security.

I chose to be useful to Bulgaria and asked to be attached to the foreign political intelligence department. I was told that before this could happen, I had to be well trained and tested in operative situations.

At that time Sofia University had visiting lecturers from the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, who came to teach us Serbia-Croatian. The State Security officer explained that most of the lecturers were connected to the Yugoslavian security service, the once famous UDBA. One of my first tasks was to see if these lecturers had been doing something other than just teaching, by showing any special interest in my colleagues at the university.  

State Security thought that the Yugoslavian lecturers or UDBA agents, protected under their cover, had been assessing the characters of the Bulgarian students in order to find weak points in them. The idea was that when these students moved on to key state positions, the Yugoslavian state would be able to contact them. That was the main argument given to me, as to why the Bulgarian state had to do the same assessments of these students, and how estimate if their contacts with the Yugoslav professors were based on some form of dependence.     

At that time, Yugoslavia said goodbye to its leader Joseph Broz Tito, and took the route of autonomous socialism. There was a possibility for partnership on various political levels, one of which was the exchange of political delegations at the highest level between the youth organisations of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia: respectively, the State Committee on Youth and Sport (DKMS) and The Union of Yugoslavian Socialist Youth (UYSY).  

I was sent as an interpreter to such meetings with the task of forming long-term contacts with the leaders of the Yugoslavian youth organisation. The idea was that when, after some time, I started working in the foreign political intelligence department, I would have good connections with Yugoslav high-level officials. Such were the career prospects for leaders of UYSY. One of the people about whom I was told that State Security was counting on me to get in touch with was Predrag Boulatovich. At present he is the leader of the largest opposition force in Montenegro. My contacts were developing well, and I felt motivated, because I believed that I was being and could be useful to Bulgaria.  

With my progress in Chinese, State Security decided that I could be useful effectively in counteraction to the Chinese intelligence who were carrying out special projects on Bulgaria’s territory. A “breakthrough”, as it was known in State Security terminology, was needed. The breakthrough had be achieved in a place held to be a Chinese intelligence operation in Bulgaria. Such place was the correspondents’ unit of China’s Xinhua Agency. (Editor’s note: Xinhua is billed as a news agency). 

The breakthrough was successfully achieved, and I became a regular visitor to the Chinese representatives there. The idea was that I had to form and develop long-term contacts, and at the same time, to find out if these Chinese journalists were using their work as a cover and, if this was proven true, to find out the real nature of their work in Bulgaria. 

I had to keep an eye on the Chinese diplomats who would come to talk to me, and to report these conversations. Based on this, conclusions had to be drawn whether these diplomats were working for Chinese intelligence, and in what capacity.

Very important information given me by State Security was that there was possible co-operation between the Chinese and the then Socialist Romanian Intelligence. Of course, this co-operation was taking place on Bulgarian territory.

Although Romania was at that time part of the Warsaw Pact, the country was the subject of Bulgarian intelligence and counter intelligence services. Such was the structure of Unit 17 of the former First General Directorate of State Security. That was the unit that dealt with the socialist countries. These countries were: Yugoslavia, China, Romania and Albania. Somewhere around the beginning of 1983 and the start of 1984, I was officially transferred to Unit 17. I started work with the officer working on Yugoslavia, Danail Serafidov, who is dead now. One day he told me that there was a serious problem.        

There were records of the state of my health, and the law did not allow me under these circumstances to work for the intelligence service. I explained to him that there was nothing wrong with my health and that State Security knew about this even before I had become involved. Something more: I told him that this was why I was offered the choice: either to be useful to the state or to face the consequences. 

The representative of the First General Directorate told me that he had not been informed about this, and advised me to turn to the head of the “Military and Social Security” department of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, General Todor Radulov. I went to see General Radulov with a written complaint about the blackmail to which I had been subjected. In my letter, I described in detail what happened to me in the army. Something which I today cannot even talk about. Radulov took the letter but I never received an official answer. This letter, by the way, is not in any of the archives of State Security. The only “answer” that I received was from the officer who had recruited me for State Security. The answer was: “We are lawyers. We will always out-talk you. You can protest to whomever you want, but we will always say that we did not know about your diagnosis and that we have just found out about it. You can do no more than imagine that the matter of your diagnosis has been cleared up. Do not take on State Security, because we will always be stronger than you”.     

In that way, I left State Security in 1984 amid a row, not - as Interior Minister Roumen Petkov claims - in December 1989. Until today my fake diagnosis still remains in the archives of the First General Directorate. I was declared as someone who could not be trusted.
After 1984, in extremely difficult circumstances, I had to find ways to make my new identity as a person and as a professional, and I had to keep silence.

I want to apologise to all Bulgarian citizens whose lives I have changed in some way and for the suffering that I might have caused. I did not mean harm. In my youth, I was led by the idea that these people had to be helped to correct themselves.

I am not proud of this period of my life. I could not face the atrocities in the army but probably I had to find other ways out. I do not know if I was useful to the Bulgarian state, but more frightening was the discovery that came with the years - that there was no state.

I want to thank General Kircho Kirov, the current head of the National Intelligence Service, whom I personally asked not to interfere in the matter of my disclosed dossier.

I do not believe in the morality of the people who run the Interior Ministry.

I am a Bulgarian journalist who has fought for his independence in a very fearsome battle. I have paid the price of my freedom with the tons of rubbish I have had to put up with.

I am telling you all this because I ask for your confidence in me as a Bulgarian journalist.

I want to apologise to the former state of Yugoslavia and to all my dearest friends there. I worked against the Yugoslav secret services thinking that I was working for Bulgaria. It turned out to be different.  

I would like to apologise to China, where I have many friends. I hope I did not harm China through my actions. I would like to apologise to the Republic of Romania as well. I want to thank Nova TV for its courage and dignity in standing behind me in such a difficult moment. Thank you.