Prosecutor's Office raises new charges against Alexey Petrov

Тhe charges raised against Alexei Petrov and six other people arrested in February during the "Octopus" raid were reviewed on August 9, became clear yesterday after the Sofia City Court (SCC) heard once again the claim of the former advisor to the State Agency for National Security (SANS) for changing the constraint measure from detention to a lighter one. In the late afternoon, the court refused again to set Petrov free.

"The organised group Octopus "contained a smaller crime group," explained earlier the lead prosecutor in the case, Svetlozar Kostov. He specified that the charges brought initially against Petrov on the so-called "Octopus" case for money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion had not been dropped. The Prosecutor's Office has set aside the materials on this case and has raised two new indictments against Petrov for the organisation of a separate independent group which committed crimes against persons and property. The former SANS advisor was the head of this smaller group, and Anton Petrov and Marcello Dzhotolov who were also detained with him, were involved in this group. In the prosecutor's words, this is a SCC tactical move aimed at presenting more quickly the case of the smaller group before the court.