site.btaVarna Residents Stage Ninth Rally Against Mayor's Detention
Varna residents staged their ninth demonstration against the detention of the city's Mayor, Blagomir Kotsev, who has been held in custody since July 8. People carried signs expressing their discontent with the government and the way justice is administered. They claim that Kotsev and municipal councilors Yordan Kateliev and Nikolay Stefanov are political prisoners and should be released immediately.
The protesters marched to Independence Square in the city centre, where they illuminated the Palace of Justice with flashlights as a symbol of their call for greater transparency in the justice system.
Mayor Blagomir Kotsev, who was elected in Varna on the ticket of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria, was arrested late on July 8 following a corruption tip-off by a failed public procurement tenderer. Also that day, the prosecuting magistracy announced that the Anti-Corruption Commission had launched an operation in Varna under the supervision of the Sofia City Prosecution Office. Kotsev, Kateliev and Stefanov were charged with attempting to extort the equivalent of 15% of a public procurement contract worth BGN 1,523,446 (excluding VAT) for supplying meals to schools and kindergartens.
Kotsev's arrest has triggered large-scale protests in Varna, Sofia and other major cities.
/MR/
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