site.btaTISP Renews Allegations of Caretaker Cabinet's Links to Petrohan Case

On the day the caretaker cabinet took the oath of office, There Is Such a People (TISP) again tied the new government to the Petrohan crime case, echoing allegations circulated on Wednesday by TISP itself, Vazrazhdane and MRF-New Beginning. Reading a declaration on behalf of his parliamentary group on Thursday, TISP Floor Leader Toshko Yordanov said that “the ministers of the 'Petrohan cabinet' will take the oath without shame, without remorse and without a gram of conscience.”

Three men were found shot dead in a privately owned lodge near the Petrohan Pass (Northwestern Bulgaria) on February 2. Three more men, who had also occupied the property, were discovered on February 8 in a camper van in the area of Okolchitsa Peak, Western Balkan Range. Their death, too, had been caused by shotgun wounds. The deaths have shocked Bulgaria and have remained in the focus of public attention ever since.

“The tragedy involving the Petrohan pedophile sect opened our eyes to a monstrous problem and to serious suspicions of state protection,” he said. Yordanov argued that the Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) parliamentary group has still not distanced itself “from the people in its ranks who were close to this non-governmental organization (NGO) or assisted it with the full power of the state institutions they led.”

“And not only did they fail to distance themselves, but they also pushed more people connected to this filth from the Petrohan lodge into the caretaker cabinet that will stand before us today to take the oath - an oath after which, in their new lodge in the Council of Ministers, the donations have already been distributed, the messages delivered, and all that remains is for them to figure out how to erase the traces,” Yordanov stated.

He added that Andrey Yankulov, caretaker Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, is a legal expert at the Anti-Corruption Fund - an organization which, according to him, pressured the Interior Ministry not to investigate the Petrohan NGO.

He also said that Georgi Klisurski, caretaker Finance Minister, was a deputy to Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev, who he claimed had “personally sponsored members of the Petrohan sect.”

The TISP Floor Leader further noted that Emil Dechev, caretaker Interior Minister, had served as deputy justice minister to CC-DB Co-Floor Leader Nadejda Iordanova in the cabinet of Kiril Petkov, when the Petrohan NGO received what he described as rapid registration in official registers.

He also asked whether Stoil Tzitzelkov, caretaker Deputy Prime Minister for Fair Elections, had previously been arrested for possession of marijuana and, on another occasion, with a blood alcohol level of 1.2 per mille.