Long-term acquaintance, teamwork and friendly relations. The city prosecutor of Sofia Iliyana Kirilova and the former head of the capital’s investigative service, Petyo Petrov-Euroto, have been close for over two decades. This becomes clear from Kirilova’s interrogation. The protocol of it was published by the organization “Anti-Corruption Fund” (AKF) on Wednesday.
Petrov is the main character in the “Eight Dwarfs” affair, a story told by ACF back in 2020. Then businessman Iliya Zlatanov told how he was pressured by the special prosecutor’s office to part with his enterprises. According to him, Petrov was behind all this. Zlatanov’s claims are also supported by an internal audit report at the prosecutor’s office, which, however, has been in the archive for years.
The state prosecution was launched against Petrov only in 2023. If the current explanations of the prosecutor’s office are to be believed, a case was opened against the former investigator because the former chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev thought that he had written him a threatening letter. It was obtained after the explosion next to his car last spring.
The interrogation
Kirilova was interrogated by prosecutor Yordan Petrov, who works in the city prosecutor’s office she leads. The reason is a case initiated in the district prosecutor’s office, and subsequently seized by the city prosecutor’s office. According to this investigation, the former wife of the Euro, Lyubena Pavlova, testifies. In them, he claims that the current chief prosecutor Borislav Sarafov was a frequent visitor to the restaurant “Osemte dzheta”. The case was dismissed after its seizure.
Kirilova says that she has known Petrov since 1997, when they were both investigators. She had witnessed the failure of his first marriage, which she says had a fatal effect on him, and then he started drinking.
“There was a period of time when he called me often to complain about his life, then he disappeared for a long time“, says Kirilova.
Meanwhile, Petrov is growing in his career and at the time of the chief prosecutor Nikola Filchev is already the deputy head of the capital investigation. Apart from Kirilova, he is also close to his sister. At the time of Sotir Tsatsarov, Petrov was appointed head of the investigative service. Kirilova also works there, who also deals with the “KTB” case, in which the supervising prosecutor is Ivan Geshev.
“I have introduced Mr. Petrov to my late husband and to one of my sons, who works in DANS. The reason for the acquaintance is when I was leaving the investigation later in the day and one of them came to pick me up in a car“, says Kirilova in her interview.
Petrov left the system in 2015 after the final failure of the case against former Defense Minister Nikolay Tsonev. During the trial, it became clear that the investigator had provoked the three accused into bribery, which is a crime. He then registered as a lawyer, and a few years later he was persistently rumored to have built a network of influence in the judiciary and the “Eight Dwarfs” scandal broke out.
Kirilova says that the two renewed their contacts in 2020 after the sudden death of her sister. Then she went to a restaurant on Sandor Petiofi Street (Eight Dwarfs) to see each other. Shortly after that, Kirilova said that there was a proposal from Geshev, who is already the chief prosecutor, that she run for city council.
“When I shared this with Petrov, he told me that it’s not bad to try, and if I decide that I have problems with this position, I can always resign. Not Petrov, but Geshev personally invited me to prepare a concept for the application“, says Kirilova.
She mentions that at that time Petrov introduced her to a man named Mitko, who “showed an unhealthy interest in who I was.” This man was probably Dimitar Spasov-Karatista, head of the security company “Delta Guard”, mentioned by Kirilova in her story.
In 2023, when the “Eight Dwarfs” scandal was already three years old, the city prosecutor of Sofia continued her contacts with Petrov, who sent her photos of his young son and told her about his daily life. Kirilova also knew Lyubena Pavlova from several years earlier. Then she gave her an impression of “a person who is interested in extremeness, given that he shared that he has an affinity for guns and loves high speeds“. Kirilova says that from the beginning of the “Eight Dwarfs” scandal, she had doubts whether Petrov or rather his wife was responsible for it. She also says that she asked herself why after Lyubena claimed that she was a witness to corruption practices, did not file a report earlier.
He wanted to blow my head off
Kirilova also talks about her relationship with Geshev. They were complicated, she said, because he had frequent emotional outbursts, which by the end of his tenure were daily. He and Kirilova argued about the media policy of the prosecutor’s office, she said that the institution’s media releases cannot have political underpinnings.
The city prosecutor explains that although Geshev himself offered her the position, he did not like her. Evidence was his line from a recorded conversation with the member of the High Judicial Council Yordan Stoev. In it, Geshev explained that he was waiting for an opportune moment to marry her “turned his head away“.
Geshev was convinced that Euroto was the author of the threatening letter to him. Kirilova was not so sure.
“When I saw the letter that Geshev had posted on the website of the prosecutor’s office, it struck me that there were punctuation errors and I think there were commas missing somewhere. I know from my work with Petrov that he is a grammar perfectionist and many times when delivering mail he has commented on pronunciation and spelling errors in individual reports and complaintsshe says.
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