site.btaActing Prosecutor General Submits Proposal for Dismissal of Pleven District Prosecution Office's Head

Acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov has submitted a proposal to the Prosecutors Chamber of the Supreme Judicial Council to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the administrative head of the Pleven District Prosecution Office, the prosecution service reported on its website here on Tuesday. Sarafov calls for disciplinary sanction ‘dismissal as administrative head’ on District Prosecutor Vladimir Nikolov.

The proposal is based on 17-page report following an audit of the Pleven District Prosecution Office's activities for the period July 01, 2023, to December 31 ,2024, which found disciplinary violations of the Judicial System Act.

The audit has established that Nikolov systematically violated the principle of random selection in the allocation of files and pre-trial proceedings in the Prosecution Office he headed, in 40 cases he did not comply with the acts in force in the prosecution service related to the principle of random selection.

A further 67 files were found to have been allocated by Nikolov in his capacity as administrative head of the Pleven District Prosecution Office under the hypothesis of selection. In the majority of them, it is not clear on what basis a file was allocated to the precise team member indicated in the protocol on the specific selection. In each of the cases listed, it was found that the selection hypothesis had been incorrectly applied and that they should have been allocated on a random basis.

The Pleven District Prosecutor failed to monitor compliance with the time limits for procedural coercive measures under the Code of Criminal Procedure and, as a result, an offence was committed in respect of accused persons in six pre-trial proceedings, Sarafov's letter points out.