The same day Bulgaria’s national consultative council met to discuss the July 3 2008 explosions at the Chelopechene munitions dump, military prosecutors questioned a senior officer in connection with charges against him of embezzlement and abuse of office.

Bulgarian National Television reported on July 17 that the charges arose from two cases, in 2005 and in 2007, of irregularities in the sales of about 250 tons of scrap metal from dismantled old munitions.

Emerging after being questioned for 15 minutes, Major Miroslav Mitov, who was accompanied by two lawyers, declined to speak to reporters.

Iliyan Georgiev, spokesperson for the military prosecutor’s office, told journalists that the alleged abuses involved sales of scrap metal to a company that had offered a price five times lower than all the others.

Also questioned was former defence minister Vesselin Bliznakov, who was in office from late 2005 until the Cabinet reshuffle in the first half of 2008.

The prosecution spokesperson said that Bliznakov gave evidence as a witness in pre-trial proceedings related to loss of military property and to the Chelopechene explosions.

At the meeting of the national consultative council on national security – which turned out somewhat differently than intended when opposition politicians walked out after their demands to shift the national controversy about abuse of EU funds high on the agenda was turned down – Purvanov said that he expected the adoption of a programme to dispose of the military’s surplus munitions.

Purvanov, speaking to journalists before the meeting started, said that most of the surplus munitions, currently stored in about 30 military bases around Bulgaria, should be destroyed by the end of the year.

He said that it was very likely that a new Defence and Armed Forces Act would be adopted by the end of the year.