Specialised Criminal Court has not issued authorisations for telephone tapping of Caretaker PM Yanev and opposition politicians

In relation to insinuations made in the public domain by representatives of the “Democratic Bulgaria” alliance that the Specialised Criminal Court had allegedly issued permits for the use of special surveillance devices on political figures, a check was made in the court registers. It established that the Specialised Criminal Court has not issued any permit for the use of special surveillance devices on the incumbent caretaker Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Stefan Yanev, nor on persons from political formations mentioned in the media, the Specialised Court said on May 25.

The activity of the Specialised Criminal Court on the application of the law on special surveillance devices is inspected annually by the National Bureau for Control of Special Intelligence Means. So far, the reports have not identified any violations in this activity.

It has been repeatedly stated that "judicial control over requests for the application and use of SSDs is significantly enhanced".

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Last week,”Democratic Bulgaria" co-leader Atanas Atanassov said that 32 political figures were subject to telephone tapping since the beginning of the year, including during the campaign for the April 4 parliamentary elections.

Caretaker Minister of interior Boyko Rashkov later confirmed that he received information about such telephone tapping.