With regard to publications in certain media with allegations of inactivity by the prosecution in the investigation of the attempted poisoning of Emilian Gebrev, as well as in relation with his public statements by order of the Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov, PORB Press Center presents the following information:
On 04/28/2015 after dinner with business partners in a hotel restaurant in Sofia and a severe deterioration with his health, Emilian Gebrev, CEO and owner of EMKO OOD, was urgently admitted to the Medical Academy. His life was saved only thanks to the emergency actions taken by the medical teams. On April 29, 2015, V. T., Director of "Production activity" at EMKO OOD, was admitted to a hospital with the same symptoms. On 04/05/2015, Emilian Gebrev's son was admitted to the Medical Academy as an emergency. For all three, the initial suspicions were of a stroke, and after tests and toxicological analyzes of the blood, treatment was conducted for acute poisoning as a result of organophosphorus compounds.
On 01/05/2015 pre-trial proceedings were initiated by the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office for attempted murder. The investigation has been assigned to the Sofia City Metropolitan Police Department (SCMPD). Searches were carried out and physical evidence was seized /from motor vehicles, offices and homes/ numerous witnesses were questioned, forensic medical examinations were appointed, as well as 13 toxicochemical examinations. The main version being worked on at the moment is an attempt at food poisoning. Traces of chlorpyrifos /insecticide, which is highly toxic and is used against agricultural pests/, were found in used coffee from a coffee machine in the home of Emilian Gebrev, as well as on his son's clothes. Traces of such a substance were also found in a dish consumed /salad/ during the dinner on 28/04/2015, but they are in a minimal amount and are due to proven agrochemical processing of agricultural products. According to the medical examiners, the diagnosis of the three can generally be defined as "acute intoxication with organophosphorus compounds". On June 4, 2016, the pre-trial proceedings were suspended due to non-disclosure of the perpetrator of the crimes.
On 11.10.2018, Emilian Gebrev sent a letter to the Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov, in which he stated: "I have reasons to believe that the poison used in our Bulgarian case, which was not fully identified in 2015, is from the family of Novichok, drawing parallels with the Skripal case in Britain. As a result of this letter, on 15.10.2018, the SCPO reopened the pre-trial investigation. On 19.10.2018, an agreement was signed between the Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov, the Minister of Internal Affairs Mladen Marinov and the Chairman of the State Agency for National Security Dimitar Georgiev on the creation of a specialized unit to support the investigation of the specific case. It has been assigned to a team of prosecutors, investigating police officers, other police officers from the SCMPD and agents of SANS. In the course of the work, after coordination with partner services and the British Embassy, two visits were made to our country by British police officers investigating the so-called "Skripal" case. It was established, without the cooperation of Mr. Gebrev, that in June 2015, he assigned, on a private basis, through the MA, a toxicological examination of blood and urine samples, to the Finnish laboratory VERIFIN. The conclusion of this study was acquired by the investigating authorities for the first time on 23/10/2018. It confirms that there are traces of two phosphorus-containing compounds in the samples sent.
A European Warrant Investigation has also been sent to the Finnish authorities in order to obtain additional information. Numerous interrogations of witnesses were carried out / incl. Boyko Noev, the Minister of Economy Emil Karanikolov/, new examinations were appointed, based on the existing medical documentation and the VERIFIN report. Information on the identity of the persons who, according to the investigation conducted in Great Britain, participated in the attempt on Sergei and Yulia Skripal was obtained through international exchange. From the comparisons made in the databases of the Ministry of the Interior and the State Security Service, it was established that one of them - Sergey Fedotov, stayed in Bulgaria three times in 2015, with the second visit entering on 24/04/2015 /Burgas Airport checkpoint/ and exit on 28/04/2015 /On the border of Airport Sofia/. The persons, also citizens of the Russian Federation, who accompanied Fedotov on his visits to our country, as well as other such Russian citizens who traveled to Bulgaria with them, have been identified. A significant part of their routes (used credit cards, telephones, rental cars, hotels, places visited) was also established, especially during their stay in Sofia.
It was established that some of these persons used for accommodation a capital hotel located immediately next to the building in which in 2015 the office of EMKO OOD was housed, with an express insistence on a specific room providing direct observation of the entrance to the underground parking lot on the building. Of particular importance to the course of the investigation, a video recording from security cameras at the parking lot in question was discovered and seized. The video technical expertise appointed in our country at National Institute of Forensic Science within the Ministry of Interior was not able to obtain an image suitable for identification, therefore a request for legal assistance was sent to the USA and a new video technical expertise was assigned to an FBI laboratory. Two European Investigation Orders have been sent to the British authorities. With the first, all identification data for the persons in the "Skripal" case - citizens of the Russian Federation, including photographs /and from identity documents/ are required. With the second, after sending the relevant expertise and the VERIFIN report, a request is made to compare the chemical compounds found in them with the substance found and identified in the British investigation as "Novichok". To date, there has been no implementation of the European Investigation Orders.
In another letter of Emilian Gebrev to the Prosecutor General /12.06.2019/, a request is made that the Bulgarian authorities turn to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons /OPCW/ and request technical assistance from it to establish the actual composition of the substance that caused the acute poisoning of him, his son and the company's technical director. According to the Law on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the Control of Toxic Chemical Substances and Their Precursors, the body that carries out international cooperation with the OPCW in our country is the Interdepartmental Commission for Export Control and Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction under the Minister of Economy. On 21.02.2019, the supervising prosecutors of the pre-trial proceedings made an official request to this commission for contact with the OPCW, with a view to entrusting the organization or its experts with a study of the type and composition of the substance that caused the poisoning of the three victims. The assignment should be carried out in accordance with the Bulgarian Code of Criminal Procedure, with a stated willingness to provide full access to the materials in the case and to bear all costs.
After an exchange of correspondence with the Minister of Economy and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on 12/06/2019, the Prosecutor's Office was informed that "the OPCW is ready to provide technical assistance to the Republic of Bulgaria, including an assessment of the chemical substance that caused the poisoning ... if one is officially requested. It is expressly emphasized that this assistance should be requested from the Bulgarian government through an official channel, i.e. through a verbal note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs..." According to the notice sent to the Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov, "The representatives of the OPCW have explicitly referred to the bilateral agreement on privileges and the immunities of the OPCW, by which they signaled that the OPCW will not provide its own experts for engaging the purposes of criminal proceedings.
The investigating authorities have requested complete information on the commercial activity of EMKO OOD for the period 2014-2015 /all carried out export transactions with weapons and ammunition/. One of the versions being worked on is that the assassination attempts are related to such exports to Ukraine /for the Ministry of Defense and for the Ministry of Internal Affairs - National Guard of Ukraine/ - in December 2014, January 2015 and March 2015. As of April 2015, no actions were taken by Emilian Gebrev related to the acquisition of the enterprise "Dunarit", therefore the statements in this direction and pointing to such actions as a reason for the attempt are without basis . The pre-trial proceedings in the SGP have no common cause and actions on the investigation with the one conducted in the Specialized Prosecutor's Office against Emilian Gebrev and other persons.
The claims that Mr. Gebrev is not provided with information about the progress of the pre-trial proceedings, despite his numerous requests for this in letters to the PORB management and in the media, are also unfounded. His rights, including those for familiarization with the materials in the case, are specified in the Criminal Procedure Code and this is the order for their implementation.
The pre-trial investigation is ongoing, with particular importance of the results of the video technical expertise assigned to the FBI, as well as the two European Investigation Orders sent to the UK.
The information in this press release is provided to the media after appropriate permission from the supervising prosecutors under the order of the Criminal Procedure Code.