The General-Prosecutor's Office has appealed the 'not guilty' verdict issued by Sofia City Court against former interior minister Roumen Petkov in case in which he was accused of leaking classified information, Bulgarian news agency BTA said on December 4 2008.

On November 20 2008, Petkov was found not guilty on charges of revealing classified information at the fist and only hearing of the case. The court found that Petkov had not revealed classified information and declared him not guilty.

Prosecutors' request for Petkov to be fined 2750 leva was also denied by the court. The court decided that indeed Petkov talked about Alexei Petrov to the media, but did not describe him specifically as a secret agent. Petkov said he always knew he had never committed any crime and the court ruling was not going affect his self-esteem, but rather his reputation.

The charges against Petkov came almost six months after he resigned from his post as interior minister after admitting that he had had a personal meeting with two controversial businessmen Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov, commonly referred by the media as the "Galevi brothers", back in 2006, when the duo were under police investigation.

When questioned in Parliament about the meeting, Petkov said that it was arranged by Alexei Petrov, who worked as an interior ministry officer. These words became the basis for the charges pressed against Petkov by prosecutors.

Petrov, often linked by the media to Bulgaria's underground world, had served as a secret agent of the ministry and Petkov words made this information public knowledge. The prosecutors claim that Petkov has reveled classified information.

At the time, Petkov said that it was not him who has revealed the truth about Petrov's post within the ministry, but a former top ministry employee, Vanyo Tanov. However, at the end of the probe, the prosecutors decided to charge Petkov, but not Tanov.

Alexei Petrov is currently employed at the State Agency for National Security where he takes the post of adviser to the agency's head Petko Sertov. Sertov has previously explained Petrov's appointment with the words that "he had to be found a job after he was revealed as interior ministry's secret collaborator".