Top Bulgarians spied for secret police

BULGARIA:More than 100 serving or former members of Bulgaria's democratic parliament, including the country's current president, spied for the communist-era secret police, an investigative panel has revealed.

The commission found that 141 of about 1,800 deputies to serve in Bulgaria's six post-communist parliaments since 1989 had worked as agents for the Darzhavna Sigurnost, the feared security service that was considered a close and loyal ally of the Soviet KGB.

The list of former spies includes president Georgi Parvanov, who was a deputy from 1995-2001; Ahmed Dogan, leader of a party in the current ruling coalition; former Socialist premier Zhan Videnov and European Parliament member Evgeni Kirilov.

The panel, which was created by parliament, said 19 current deputies and 23 members of post-communist presidential administrations had collaborated with Bulgaria's secret police, which has been accused of involvement in the 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul, and the 1978 murder in London of dissident Georgi Markov.

"Around 10 per cent of the public service offices after 1989 were and are held by people connected with the former State security committee," said commission member Ekaterina Boncheva.

"Some served as agents, others allowed their houses to be used for meetings with secret police informers." Bulgaria passed a law last year, before joining the European Union in January, that requires the naming of all public figures who worked with the secret police. There is no punishment for those named and, unlike in some ex-communist states, former collaborators are not barred from holding public office.

Most of the alleged former spies deny giving valuable information to their handlers, and Mr Parvanov insists that he only wrote a book review for a man who turned out to be a secret services officer.

His opponents claim, however, that many of his secret police files were among thousands that have disappeared or been destroyed, and allege that he may have ordered their destruction.

Apart from Albania, Bulgaria was the last European country to open the archives of its communist secret police, largely due to resistance from powerful people in politics, business and the security services who feared damage to their reputations.

Parliament finally voted to open the files - but restricted access to many of the most sensitive documents - last December, shortly after the mysterious shooting to death of the main keeper of the archives.