Wednesday 1 July 2009

142 ex-spies Running for Government In Bulgarian Elections

142 ex-spies Running for Government In Bulgarian Elections

This is quite an unbelievable fact – 142 ex-spies standing for government! Having that thought sink in the vocation of being a spy prior to 1990 must have been a common one. Even Bulgaria’s currency president has been tagged as an ex-spy. In a socialist environment I suppose every citizen is a spy and as a duty has to report any undermining of the regime. The question to be asked is would you trust an ex-spy to be honest in government. Well they’ve been doing that for decade here so no change there.

A special commission in Bulgaria has uncovered that 142 spies from communist times are standing in Sunday’s legislative elections.

The special commission responsible for opening secret service files published the names of candidates who worked for the intelligence or counter-intelligence services, or as military agents engaged in other sections of the disbanded security services.

The revelations concerning these candidates have no legal consequences for them, the AFP agency states.

The best-known of the agents is the leader of the MDL Turkish minority party, Ahmed Dogan, whose past as a member of military counter-espionage during the days of communism is already well-documented.

The commission looked into the files of all 3,234 candidates standing at the elections.

1,163 candidates were immediately ruled out of the investigation as they were too young to have been members of intelligence services at that time.

In 2006, Bulgaria adopted a law requiring publication of lists of all those active in the intelligence services up until their disbandment in 1991.

Among the hundreds of names is that of Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, though he himself denies any links.


Source: www.b92.net
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