The Sofia City Court remanded the mayor of Varna, Blagomir Kotsev, reported bTV. After a 2-hour session, the court decided that there was a reasonable assumption that Kotsev participated in the criminal schemes.
It is clear that work is being done on the case, the court also said and emphasized that the testimonies of the witnesses are being supplemented, especially since there are 3 new witnesses, one of whom is anonymous.
He was questioned yesterday, a few hours after the Court of Appeal imposed a lighter measure on Kotsev's two advisors.
The secret witness was a foreigner. He gave his testimony with a Russian interpreter. The prosecutor's office said that he testified about “permanent corruption practices in the Varna municipality”, carried out by Varna Mayor Kotsev.
In his testimony, the witness claims that he was asked for money to issue documents. The prosecutor's office stated that the secret witness told them about meetings between him and him in Kotsev in the fall of 2024. The several meetings were for investment purposes. According to the prosecutor's office, the foreigner had proper documents for issuing specific orders, but in order for them to be issued, Kotsev asked him for money.
From the interrogations presented by prosecutor Angel Kanev, it is clear that for the issuance of one PUP, Kotsev asked him for 20 thousand leva. Their meetings were held with people from the close family circle of the accused, everything was in order with documents, but he had to pay in order to receive the explicit permission from the mayor.
There were 3 investment intentions. The secret witness told investigators that he feared for his life.
Kotsev's defense stated that the secret witness was questioned urgently. And he countered that the prosecutor's office had no way of knowing that the documents in question were correct. And he stated that nowhere in the testimony did it say that he was threatened.
According to Kotsev's lawyer, he did not sign the documents in question for the PUP, and accused the prosecutor's office of not checking the testimonies of the witnesses. And he defined the way in which the investigation was conducted as follows-
“This proceeding will go down in history as a custom-made proceeding. And it will be taught how not to do it.“
In court, Kotsev himself denied having signed such documents:
“I have delegated the deputy mayor for construction and the chief architect for these activities. In recent days, I have been watching what is happening in Elenite and thinking how right we have been”.
Regarding the allegations of the secret witness, Kotsev said: Every investor wants to be approved quickly, and our job is to merge this according to the law. I think these are lies, I know that they have ties to the old administration and the old mayor. They can find hundreds of investor-witnesses who are dissatisfied.
The determination is not final.