site.btaInterior Minister Demerdzhiev: Institutions Must Explain Inaction Over Varna Illegal Builds

Municipal and central authorities could not have missed the construction of more than 100 illegal buildings near Varna, Minister of Interior Ivan Demerdzhiev said on Sunday. 

Demerdzhiev told bTV’s 120 Minutes that it was absurd to suggest the authorities had been unaware of the illegal buildings in the Baba Alino locality, saying such construction could not have taken place without the institutions knowing.

He said the institutions must explain their inaction and failure to address the problem. Oleg Nevzorov was most likely not in Bulgaria, but the information was being verified, he added.

Asked why the State Agency for National Security (SANS) in 2025 ordered Nevzorov to leave the country and barred him from returning for 10 years, before later revoking the decision, Demerdzhiev said he had no definitive answer. “I am not aware of any relevant circumstances that would warrant such an order,” he said. In his view, Nevzorov’s expulsion was based on sufficient information about unlawful activity.

“There is no other such case in SANS practice, an order of this type being issued and then withdrawn by the same authority days later. Denyo Denev must explain whether he took that decision on his own and what grounds led to it,” Demerdzhiev said.

He said this was not the first or only such case, citing similar findings in the Petrohan case. There, too, an area appeared to be operating by its own rules, with the State having withdrawn in some form, he said. He called it strange that key witnesses had been questioned and sent back to Mexico. He said he had serious doubts about whether all information in the case had been collected. The prosecutor’s office neglected the case, and the reports were closed one by one in a not particularly convincing way, he said.

Demerdzhiev said he was ready to meet the mothers of two of those found dead at Petrohan and Okolchitsa, Ralitsa Asenova and Stella Dimitrova-Maystorova, but said he had no authority to order the release of investigation materials. “That is the right of the supervising prosecutor, and they need to distinguish between their requests,” he said.

Asked whether there was new information that could overturn the preliminary conclusion, Demerdzhiev said there was none at present.