SOFIA (Reuters) -Bulgaria’s former Prime Minister and leader of opposition centre-right GERB party, Boyko Borissov, was detained late on Thursday as part of a police operation linked to probes by the EU Public Prosecutor’s Office, the interior ministry said.
Former premier Borissov’s decade-long rule ended last April after an election that showed popular anger over high-level corruption in the European Union’s poorest member state.
A new centrist coalition government took office in December, pledging zero tolerance to graft.
Former Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov, the former chair of the parliamentary budgetary commission Menda Stoyanova and Borissov’s media adviser Sevdalina Arnaudova were also detained, the ministry said in a statement.
“A large-scale operation is underway in connection with 120 cases of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bulgaria. Searches and seizures are carried out at many addresses. Boyko Borissov, Vladislav Goranov, Menda Stoyanova and Sevdalina Arnaudova are currently detained,” the ministry said.
The EU Public Prosecutor’s Office, led by Romania’s former anti-corruption chief prosecutor Laura Kovesi, focuses on serious fraud linked to misuse of EU funds.
Dozens of GERB politicians and supporters gathered in front of Borissov’s house in Sofia’s outskirts, chanting “resignation” and accusing the police and the new government of political repression.
“Borissov has not been charged for the time being. The police have carried out a search at his home. He has been taken to the headquarters of the national police where he most likely will be detained for 24 hours,” his lawyer Menko Menkov told reporters.
Kovesi, who ended a two-day visit to Bulgaria earlier on Thursday, has said her office has received a record high number of complaints from Bulgaria and has opened 120 investigations.
“No one is above the law,” Prime Minister Kiril Petkov posted on his Facebook page.
(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; editing by Richard Pullin)
