The former director of the Bulgarian agency "Customs" Petya Bankova has pointed in her testimony before the court to the then Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Asen Vasilev as the person who determined the appointments in the agency "Customs".
Asen Vasilev orchestrated the smuggling through the Customs Agency while he was Minister. He was also the final recipient of hundreds of thousands of leva in smuggling bribes.
"I cannot give specific amounts of money at the moment, but I have written them down in my seized notes and if they are provided to me I will be able to quote them accurately. According to my information on the passage of one truckload of 'Vapes', the bribe was 120 thousand leva per truck," Bankova said in one of her disclosures.
Bankova is on trial as a member of a criminal gang for cigarette smuggling and official crimes along with former Interior Ministry chief secretary Zhivko Kotsev, Petar Subev of the Border Police, Nikola Nikolov-Paskal, who is hiding in Serbia, Marin Dimitrov and his son Stefan.
Bankova's testimony was disclosed before the Sofia Court of Appeal, where Stefan Dimitrov wanted to get out of custody. He has been there since early April, when the group was broken up, "24 hours" recalls. Bankova gave the testimony days before the court released her from custody to receive treatment. The prosecution also wanted her to be released, and magistrates said she had cooperated with the investigation.
Stefan Dimitrov became best known for his poodle photos and wads of cash. His lawyer, Ivo Naydenov, referred to Bankova's testimony about Assen Vassilev as an argument that it was not his client who made the decisions about appointing people in customs, which was one of his charges. However, the court quoted witnesses who described Dimitrov as a man with a wide network of contacts with officials in high positions in the Interior Ministry and the Finance Ministry. And to the words of lawyer Naydenov that the main purpose of the investigation was to reach Boyko Rashkov and Asen Vasilev, the appeals judges responded that they had no right to comment on allegations of political nuance. However, they were adamant that no party representative is immune from prosecution if there is evidence that he or she has committed a crime.
The court remanded Stefan Dimitrov in custody. The decision is final.
"There is another scandal buried in Petya Bankova's testimony:
In September, Martin Dimitrov and Bozhidar Bojanov raised the issue of 'a serious scandal involving 100 million BGN of EU funds for the purchase of reliable scanners for Bulgarian customs.' They said that 'The winner was chosen without an open procedure and tender, despite the requirements of the EC and an explicit ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court.' Again, they said, this would have a detrimental effect on our acceptance into the Schengen land border."
This is what Hristo Gadzhev from GERB-UDF wrote in his Facebook account.
It is clear from Bankova's testimony that this is happening on the explicit instructions of Assen Vasilev. | BGNES
