Pro-Russian politician in Bulgaria arrested for leaking state secrets

4 months ago 19

Zlatomir Dyovlensky, a local leader of the National Russophile Movement in Plovdiv, was arrested on suspicion of leaking state secrets in yet another case involving movement, whose national leader has been on trial for espionage for Russia since 2022.

Arrested by prosecutors and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) together with a former SANS agent on Monday, the two were charged and released on bail the following day Tuesday. Both have been banned from leaving the country as investigations are carried out.

Dyovlensky was taken by counter-intelligence officers to the BSP headquarters in Plovdiv, which the Russophile Movement also uses, confirmed Ivan Petkov, an MP from another pro-Russian party, the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

The 33-year-old “Russophile” – also a postgraduate student at the Astrakhan State University in Russia – worked as an expert in the “coordination and projects” department of the nearby Plovdiv municipality of Rodopi, where the former SANS agent also worked.

Dyovlensky, who was also a candidate for the Bulgarian Socialist Party in the April 2021 elections, was charged as an instigator and the former SANS agent as a perpetrator, said Galin Gavrailov, deputy prosecutor in Plovdiv.

“The arrest was carried out in a brutal way by breaking the door of his apartment in Plovdiv at 5:30 this morning,” said BSP MP Ivan Petkov, who is close to the family of the arrested.

Nikolai Malinov, the national leader of the Russophile Movement, who is also subject to sanctions under the US Magnitsky Act, has been on trial since 2022 on charges of spying for Russia.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)