site.btaDemocratic Bulgaria Seeks Clarification over Published OFAC Document; GERB-UDF Rejects Allegations

Democratic Bulgaria (DB) said Tuesday it had sought clarification from the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Bulgaria's acting Prosecutor General and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) following the publication by the BIRD investigative website of what it described as an OFAC court filing concerning businessman Vassil Bojkov, while GERB-UDF dismissed the matter as political propaganda based on a procedural document.

DB Co-Chair Ivaylo Mirchev said the coalition had asked OFAC whether the published document contained new information related to the case Vassil Bojkov is pursuing in the United States and whether the allegations it contained were considered established for the purposes of OFAC's sanctions proceedings. DB also sought clarification on why former finance minister Vladislav Goranov had been sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act while no comparable public measure had been announced against former prime minister Boyko Borissov.

The coalition said it had also asked acting Prosecutor General Vanya Stefanova and SANS whether they would examine the newly published information, review previous actions taken on related reports and seek relevant documents from OFAC, the US Department of Justice and other US authorities through international legal cooperation. Mirchev said there were indications of new evidence.

According to DB, the published document states that Bojkov admitted making payments to Borissov and Goranov in exchange for favourable treatment of his business interests and that the conduct was treated as bribery for the purposes of the applicable sanctions regime.

On Monday, following BIRD's publication of the document, Mirchev called on GERB leader Boyko Borissov to respond to the allegations or withdraw from politics.

GERB-UDF responded on Tuesday that the published document was a procedural filing rather than a court ruling and accused DB of using it for political propaganda. In a Facebook post, the coalition said presenting individual sentences from the document as definitive truth amounted to political propaganda rather than legal analysis.

GERB-UDF said it had consistently supported establishing the objective truth and argued that the document was being misrepresented publicly. The coalition added that it would not allow itself to be drawn into what it said was another media campaign based on insinuations rather than facts, and said OFAC's response showed it was defending the US administration's decision to impose sanctions.