Sofia. The leadership of VMRO-Bulgarian National Movement has removed its political confidence in Plovdiv Mayor Slavcho Atanasov, Municipal Council Chairman Ilko Iliev and the municipal councilors of VMRO-Bulgarian National Movement in Plovdiv Municipal Council, VMRO leader Krasimir Karakachanov told FOCUS News Agency.
Ekaterina Boncheva, a member of the committee in charge of disclosing documents and announcing affiliation of Bulgarian citizens to the State Security and the intelligence services of the Bulgarian National Army, in an interview with FOCUS News Agency.
FOCUS: Ms. Boncheva, how many people in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) used to be collaborators with the former State Security? Ekaterina Boncheva: We checked 348 people. 44 of them were collaborators with the State Security, i.e. more than 10%. The check is conducted in compliance with a provision in the law which enables us to check BAS staff since the law came into force, i.e. those who have been holding such posts since 2007.
FOCUS: What were you struck by? Ekaterina Boncheva: The first thing that strikes you is the high per cent of collaborators with the former State Security – over 10%. In addition, all State Security collaborators we revealed today hold senior posts now. Most of them deal with science and a few with the humanities. Quite a few State Security collaborators in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) were working in the First Chief Department, which had scientific and technical intelligence. It was dealing mainly with technical espionage of western technologies. The task was to avoid the technological slowdown of the socialist states in comparison with the Western European countries and the U.S. and to introduce scientific innovations into an economy that was apparently keeping abreast of them.
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