Public Statement Regarding Ivan Geshev´s Latest Speculations

Ivan Geshev on an exchange program at Russia's Prosecutor's Office; Source: Website of Russia's prosecution

In the past weeks, we have become spectators of two poorly directed plays by the organized criminal group that runs Bulgaria’s Prosecutor’s Office. The Prosecutor’s Office relies on the “best” tools from its large arsenal enabling crimes against justice to direct its productions – conspiracy theories, forged and planted “evidence”, bombastic accusations, speculations and media storms. All this is combined with the controlled distribution of false information by journalists who are “close to the investigation”– in fact, we have been witnessing the same well-known disinformation strategies since the summer of 2014.

In this light, I would like to make some clarifications:

1. I want to point out that, with few exceptions, I do not know the participants in Ivan Geshev’s plays. In addition, according to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Bulgaria, knowing someone is not a crime.
2. According to Ivan Geshev’s version, a group of people conspired to discredit the Prosecutor’s Office. I am amazed that it is possible to discredit individuals and institutions that have long been discredited in the public eye. Public confidence in Bulgaria’s Prosecutor´s Office is only 8%. Tens of thousands of Bulgarian citizens protested against Ivan Geshev in 2020, and are still demanding his resignation as General Prosecutor. Two ministers of justice requested the dismissal of Ivan Geshev from his position as General Prosecutor before the Supreme Judicial Council, claiming that he had committed and/or was responsible for “a serious violation or systematic failure to fulfill official duties, as well as actions that compromise the prestige of the judiciary” (Article 129(3), item 5 of Bulgaria’s Constitution).
3. I find it a matter of civic duty to expose the crimes of Bulgaria’s prosecutors. In this regard, I remind you that a member state of the Council of Europe has granted me political asylum because it considers that I am the subject of political persecution – in other words, that I am a victim of crimes against justice. Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Files has found four times that Ivan Geshev’s Red Notices violate Article 2(1) of Interpol’s Constitution – that is, the Red Notices issued by Geshev are incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
4. I am appalled by Ivan Geshev’s audacity to speculate about my Russian connections on the basis of a note hand-written by no one knows who. VTB were complicit in the raid against Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank) in 2014. Moreover, it was Bulgaria’s Prosecutor’s Office, under the leadership of Ivan Geshev and Sotir Tsatsarov, that provided them with the comfort to loot part of Corpbank’s assets. First, the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office turned a blind eye to the scandalous auction in London in 2015 in which Vivacom was sold for nothing to Spas Rusev and the already sanctioned VTB. Second, in his capacity as chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Sotir Tsatsarov unfroze Vivacom’s shares in 2020, so that Rusev and the sanctioned VTB could materialize exorbitant profits from the theft of Vivacom at the expense of the Bulgarian state.
5. If you are looking for people with proven Russian connections, look at Sotir Tsatsarov and Ivan Geshev. And I am not just talking about their actions and inactions in favor of VTB after it was sanctioned. We should not forget that the first one signed a cooperation agreement with Putin’s prosecutor – Yuriy Chaika – in 2017. We should remember that the second one even went on an exchange program at the Russian Prosecutor’s Office in 2018.
6. Ivan Geshev’s conspiracy theories do not hold for one more reason. He claims that I have excessive influence over the US Congress – an absurd assertion that can only make people laugh.
7. I can reassure the Prosecutor’s Office and its “administrative manager” that I will continue to expose their crimes before the competent institutions. Because this is my constitutionally guaranteed right and because this has become the purpose of my life, regardless of the threats and repressions by the vile organized criminal group that has taken over Bulgaria’s Prosecutor’s Office.

Finally, I want to remind you that I have been a character in Ivan Geshev´s eerie scripts for the past 9 years. If in 2014 someone might have been misled, the times are different now. Not only the lies and tricks of Ivan Geshev and company began to annoy both the majority of the media and the public, but also many began to see that the Bulgaria’s Prosecutor’s Office serves as an organized criminal group against justice – it is a badly molded troupe whose purpose is the racketeering of inconvenient people and covering up the crimes of Bulgaria’s status quo.

Tzvetan Vassilev