THE COURT STOPS THE CASE AGAINST THE FORMER INTERIOR MINISTER TSVETAN TSVETANOV

The court case against the former Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, for the unlawful use of special surveillance devices has been stopped because of the immunity he now has, being a newly elected Member of Parliament from the centre-right GERB party. Tsvetanov said he would write to the Prosecutor General asking him to quickly request to lift his MP’s immunity.

As expected, the Prosecutor’s Office requested the court case to be stopped, because as a newly elected MP, Tsvetanov acquired the immunity from prosecution. To show that Tsvetanov was not hiding behind his immunity, he and his lawyer insisted the case to go on.

All their arguments however were rejected by the court. The lawyer Menko Menkov insisted that his client had already given up his immunity and the case could proceed, provided that Tsvetanov agreed.

A declaration to that effect was submitted to the court. However, the judge Patar Gunchev explained that the previous removal of immunity was not valid for the newly acquired immunity. And today’s declaration does not have legal weight, because it first had to be submitted to the National Assembly and should be preceded by a request by the Prosecutor General for Tsvetanov's new immunity to be lifted.