Bulgaria’s powerful Interior Minister Rumen Petkov resigned on Sunday amid a snowballing corruption scandal that exposed links between top crime-busters and suspected criminals.
Petkov, whose personal poll ratings have plummetted in recent weeks, announced his decision at a press conference in Sofia.
The BTA news agency cited Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev as telling journalists at a separate briefing that the resignation had been accepted.
Stanishev said Petkov’s decision to step down was “normal, logical and dignified.”
Petkov insisted that his resignation was “not a sign of weakness, or yielding to pressure,” but rather a necessary step to reforming his ministry.
The backdrop to the announcement was a far-reaching corruption scandal and two execution-style killings in Sofia that seriously shook Stanishev’s center-left coalition and prompted calls for “urgent action” by the EU.
The saga began in the middle of last month when tapped phone calls revealed that high-ranking interior ministry officials had scuppered a number of police operations by leaking information to key criminals under investigation.
A top crime-busting chief and a former ministry chief of staff were arrested and charged following the revelations.
The ministry’s current chief of staff was also placed on leave, and Petkov himself came under fire after admitting to having contacts with key organized crime suspects. He had initially refused to resign and was backed by the three-party coalition after promising sweeping changes at the ministry’s unit for fighting organized crime and the strengthening of controls over the use of bugging devices.
But a recent poll from the Alpha research institute showed that support for Petkov remaining in office was down to just 9 percent.
The two execution-style killings last week sparked vehement criticism from the EU and put further pressure on the government.
Georgy Stoyev, who had written nine books on the Bulgarian mafia, was shot in the head on Monday last week outside a central Sofia hotel. The night before, Borislav Georgiev, the chief executive of a large energy company, was killed in his apartment building with two bullets to the head.
In his last TV appearance on March 29, Stoyev had requested protection to testify against the mafia and said there was “beyond all doubt” a high-level political umbrella over the underworld.
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