Policemen use violence against Tencho Popov during his arrest

Policemen used violence against former Chief Secretary of the Finance Ministry Tencho Popov while arresting him in connection with a lawsuit for bribery. This was seen on a video tape, played yesterday in the courtroom during the trial against Popov, judge Peter Santirov and former Defence Minister Nikolay Tsonev. The three defendants are accused of trying to bribe investigator Petyo Petrov in order to destroy the investigation against Tsonev.

The record of Popov’s arrest, made by cameras in his office, clearly showed how a masked policeman kicked first one and then the other hand of the man who was prostrated on the floor and, afterwards, stepped on one of his hands. At that point, Popov already had a huge lump on his head after a policeman violently pushed his head against the door frame. Shortly afterwards, the policemen seemed to be bored and two of them sat down on a sofa in the corridor of the office to pose for the cameraman from the Interior Ministry who was filming the arrest. All this happened close to Deputy City Prosecutor Roman Vassilev who attended the arrests in order to observe the police in action. Vassilev himself gained notoriety during the arrest of Nikolay Tsonev by commanding: “Since you really are a criminal, kneel down on the floor!”

After the video screening, the supervising prosecutor Bozhidar Dzhambazov requested from the court that the two videos be sent to the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Interior, Kalin Georgiev in order for him to take legal action against the outrage committed by his subordinates. According to Tsonev's lawyer, it is high time for the Prosecutor's Office to suspend its vicious practice of concealing the arbitrary actions of police officers and colleagues.

It became clear at the court hearing that initially the policemen started wiretapping the investigator Petrov after Deputy Sofia City Prosecutor, Roman Vassilev, demanded the installation of special investigation means (SIM) regarding the suspect's phone by order of the Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov. The operation was carried out as an emergency case for 24 hours without judicial permission. Subsequently, the request drawn up by the Interior Ministry for the application of SIM stated that the motive for this measure was that investigator Petyo Petrov had demanded a bribe from judge Santirov, and not vice versa, as alleged by the Prosecutor's Office in the indictment proceedings.

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