site.btaUPDATED Man Incriminated in High-Profile Journalistic Investigation Arrested before Speaking at News Conference

A man incriminated in a high-profile journalistic investigation for business theft with the participation of prosecutors, popularly known as The Eight Dwarfs, was arrested before appearing at a news conference in Sofia on Wednesday. Kristian Hristov was detained on his way into the BTA where he was expected to speak to the press.

The news conference he has scheduled was headed "Inside the Eight Dwarfs and state capture methods". 

The Eight Dwarfs case took its name from a restaurant in central Sofia which was found to have doubled as an office for Petar "the Euro" Petrov, a lawyer in private practice who had been the head of the investigation department of the Sofia City Prosecution Office in 2013-2015 and is alleged to have played a key role in various corrupt schemes. The prosecution service in Bulgaria has opened a probe into the findings in the Eight Dwarfs case, revealed by the Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF), an NGO exposing corruption in the high corridors of power, but nothing has come out of this probe to this date. 

In the announcement for the news conference at BTA, Kristian Hristov said that he used to work closely with Petrov and his ex-wife Lyubena Pavlova, and "is familiar with the vicious practices for capture of the prosecution service and other state structures".

As he was ordered by officers of the Directorate General for Combatting Organized Crime to get into their car, he tried to talk them into letting him first speak to the press but they said they were taking him "for a conversation" before that and he could hold his news conference after that.  

In a related development, Lyubena Pavlova has agreed to speak to the Anti-Corruption Fund and they published Wednesday the first part of a video of the interview in which she speaks about influence peddling in the judiciary, the price of a magistrate and who solves the problems in the judicial system, to use the words of the ACF. She says there that her motivation to speak three years after the ACF investigation is that she feels “directly threatened by a man with huge clout in the judicial system and aides in its highest corridors”.

In a surprise recent development, the Sofia prosecution service said that it has put Petar "the Euro" Petrov on the wanted list.

Approached for comment, caretaker Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said that the prosecution service should not stay silent and explain why Petrov is on the wanted list. "I call for the reasons for these actions or others to be revealed, because we are not the ones who can explain them," he added. In his words, Petrov is wanted for having committed crimes, and reporters should be given information about these by the prosecution service.

Asked to comment on claims that Petrov is abroad, Demerdzhiev said that the Interior Ministry does not have such information and cannot confirm it.