Executive chief prosecutor Borislav Sarafov submitted a proposal to the Prosecution College of the High Judicial Council to initiate disciplinary proceedings to impose disciplinary punishment on prosecutor Dimitar Frantisek Petrov from the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office.
The request was prepared on the basis of a report from a comprehensive inspection, carried out by a team of prosecutors from the Supreme Prosecutor's Office and the Appellate Prosecutor's Office in Sofia, of the work of prosecutor Petrov in the period 30.06.2021 - 28.06.2024, the prosecutor's office announced .
During the audit, all pending pre-trial proceedings and files with which Petrov was involved were checked, as well as the suspended pre-trial proceedings he supervised.
The results show that there was an unjustified delay in cases, a lack of rhythmicity and intensity in the execution of procedural and investigative actions and of control over the investigating authorities for the lawful and timely conduct of the investigation.
One of the findings in the report is that in a number of pre-trial proceedings, Petrov did not effectively manage and supervise the investigation. During the inspection of one of the cases, purposeful behavior of prosecutor Petrov was found to circumvent the requirement of the law for random distribution of files and cases.
Subsequently, pre-trial proceedings were initiated, in which a defendant was brought in and he was detained for a period of up to 72 hours, without any grounds for this.
In another pre-trial proceeding (related to money laundering), procedural actions were carried out, which were the result of “extremely incorrect, tendentious and illegal assessment of facts and circumstances”, which led to the impossibility of taking certain lawful actions by another supervising prosecutor.
During the inspection, it was established that Petrov had supervised 41 pre-trial proceedings, the investigation of which has not been completed. Some of them were found to be slow and irregular in the investigation led by Petrov in his capacity as a supervising prosecutor.
In 17 of the pre-trial proceedings, the rules for the timely preparation of a request for an extension of the investigation period were not followed, as in two of the proceedings prosecutor Petrov did not prepare a request for an extension of the investigation period at all, even though he was referred with such a proposal by the investigating authority.
Prosecutor Dimitar Frantisek Petrov has overseen 83 suspended pre-trial proceedings. The inspection team found a number of committed violations - e.g. in 41 of them, prosecutor Petrov did not request information from the police authorities about the operational-search measures undertaken and their results, or such information was requested only once.
The request sent to the SJC contains the review team's detailed findings, compiled into nearly 80 pages. It states that the workload of prosecutor Dimitar Petrov during the period 30.06.2021-28.06.2024 was not excessive and did not constitute an obstacle to the conscientious performance of his official duties.
The Chief Prosecutor Borislav Sarafov states in his proposal to the Prosecutorial College that due to the lack of effective leadership and supervision over the investigations and the allowed delay due to the inaction of Prosecutor Dimitar Petrov, disciplinary violations have been committed according to the Law on the Judiciary.
At the beginning of July this year, Borislav Sarafov ordered a comprehensive review of the work of prosecutor Dimitar Frantisek Petrov.
The purpose of the inspection was to ensure the accurate and uniform application of the law by prosecutors and investigators, and in view of numerous negative publications in mass media related to the magistrate's work.