2024-10-07 09:11:48
If he is elected in the 51st National Assembly, he will be declared a national representative, announced the CEC
Jeyhan Ibryamov took BGN 100,000 in a capital parking lot in order to trade influence in the Ministry of Defense, and the money was for buying votes.
On Saturday, the Sofia City Court left the independent MP in custody. The collected evidence is sufficient, and the crime is of high public danger, Judge Ivan Stoilov briefly justified the decision.
On Wednesday, Jeyhan Ibryamov was arrested with the marked banknotes given to him as a bribe by businessman Miroslav Todorov. The inspectors of the Anti-Corruption Commission found BGN 50,000 in his inner pocket, and another BGN 50,000 was in a paper envelope in his hand.
Ibryamov and Todorov have known each other for a long time. In August, Todorov was detained and charged with tax crimes and money laundering. Then the investigators seized the luxury jeep that the deputy was using. The vehicle belongs to a company from the broken scheme, and Todorov is the person who in a year and a half withdrew BGN 57 million from hollow companies, damaging the budget by over BGN 11 million. However, he is released from custody at the end of September. The investigation against him and the other 6 people in the scheme continues. Special intelligence tools were applied. Thus, it becomes clear that he contacted Ceyhan Ibryamov, who asked him for BGN 200,000 to lobby for a certain company to win an order at the Ministry of Defense. Ibryamov is a member of the relevant parliamentary committee in six national assemblies and has contacts in the military. It was because of this classified information that his remand was behind closed doors.
At the same time, in front of the Courthouse, 300 activists and candidate deputies of the “Alliance for Rights and Freedoms” demanded that Ibryamov be released.
On entering and exiting the courtroom, he declined to comment, as did his defense attorneys. Judge Stoilov invited the media to explain his decision to keep Ibryamov in custody.
“A large amount of evidence has been collected in the investigation – testimonies of direct eyewitnesses, a search protocol and the seizure of BGN 100,000 from him at the time of his arrest. At this stage, they are sufficient for a reasonable assumption that he committed the crime with which he is charged. There is no danger of him going into hiding, but he may commit another crime,” said judge Stoilov. According to him, there is an increased public danger in this case, because Ibryamov is both a deputy and a candidate for one in the elections on October 27. He also indicated that in the case there are also data on buying votes, although Ibryamov has not yet been charged with this, but only with trading in influence, i.e. to influence an official of the Ministry of Defense in favor of companies to absorb money from him.
Earlier in the day, Ibryamov’s wife Birshen announced that her husband probably lent the money to Todorov, and he returned it to him upon arrest. However, the accused did not state this to the investigators and took advantage of his right not to give explanations.
“His hands lit up and the money was described in advance, I don’t know how he managed to give it to Miroslav, then have it described and Miroslav return it to him,” explained prosecutor Petrov. Half of the requested amount has been granted by the Commission for Combating Corruption.
Already on Friday, the prosecutor’s office notified the CEC and the parliament about the detention of Ibryamov.
Removing the immunity of a deputy candidate is not a problem for holding elections, CEC spokeswoman Rositsa Mateva said on Sunday.
“This is not the first such case. The CEC acts in accordance with the law. So far, there is no case in the commission’s practice in which permission to detain a candidate or to bring him in as an accused was refused. We do not think that we are within the powers of the CEC to assess the evidence that the prosecution has collected, how relevant it is and how proportionate the act is to this evidence,” Mateva told BNR. All members of the CEC who attended the meeting voted for the removal of Ibryamov’s immunity.
The fact that the immunity of a deputy candidate has been removed does not mean that he does not continue to participate in the election campaign, Mateva emphasized. And he added that if the political force that raised him gathers enough votes and he is elected to the 51st National Assembly, it is not a problem for Ibryamov to be declared a deputy.