site.btaGERB-UDF Nominate SANS Chairman Plamen Tonchev for Head of Dossier Committee

The GERB-UDF parliamentary group has submitted to the National Assembly a proposal for head of the State Agency National Security (SANS) Plamen Tonchev to be elected chairman of Parliament’s committee for the disclosure of documents and the declaration of affiliation of Bulgarian citizens to the State Security and Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian People's Army (so-called Dossier Committee), BTA learned from the parliamentary press centre on Friday.

On April 30, MPs decided to open a new procedure for the election of the chairman, deputy chairman, secretary and members of the committee. And before the Easter recess of the National Assembly they stopped the old procedure. Before it was abolished, GERB-UDF had proposed former constitutional judge Konstantin Penchev to head the committee. Now he has been nominated as its deputy chairman.

Plamen Tonchev took the post of SANS chairman in May 2021, when the powers of the previous head of the agency Dimitar Georgiev were terminated early. Before the expiry of Tonchev’s term in April 2023, the Council of Ministers adopted a decision proposing President Rumen Radev to reappoint him to the same post.

Plamen Tonchev was born in 1970 in Vratsa, information on the SANS website shows. From 1994 to 1997 he was a platoon commander and commander of an independent battery in the National Internal Troops Service - Ministry of Interior. In 1997 he was appointed to the National Security Service - Ministry of Interior as Chief Inspector. From 1999 to 2005 he held the post of Senior Inspector in the National Security Service - Ministry of Interior in Vratsa. After that, for four years he headed the sector ‘Fight against Organized Crime’ in the Regional Department of the Ministry of the Interior in the city. From 2009 to 2020 he was the Director of the Territorial Directorate ‘National Security’ in Vratsa. From 2020 until his appointment as Chairman of the State Agency for National Security, he was Director of the Territorial Directorate for National Security in Kyustendil.