The car of a witness in the cases against the mayor of Trunchovitsa, a village near Pleven, burned down overnight. The district prosecutor's office in Pleven has opened a pre-trial investigation. The cause of the fire has not yet been made public.
The alarm was raised around 1am over a fire in farm outbuildings and a car with a Sofia number plate. Fire crews put out the blaze twice at the same spot, because the flames flared up again around 9am.
The car's owner says the mayor, Milan Draganov, called him on the phone the day before the fire and threatened him. No one has been named a suspect, and no link has been established between the threats and the fire.
The prosecutor's office says it still has to work out whether the fire was an accident or was started on purpose. Investigators will check where the fire began, how it reached the car, and whether anyone else was involved.
Draganov is standing trial at the district court in Levski, where prosecutors have filed indictments in three separate cases against him. He is charged with fraud and with forging official documents — notarised powers of attorney and declarations in which, acting as a public official, he certified false facts. Draganov has not been convicted, and under the presumption of innocence he remains innocent until a final court ruling.
A man from Pleven is suing over almost 60 decares of family land that was signed over to other people. In two of the civil cases, the court found that neither the signature nor the names written on a power of attorney notarised by the mayor belonged to the claimant's father. The deals were declared void and the land was returned.
In May, when an investigation came out about land near the village transferred using disputed powers of attorney, Draganov said the people who sold the fields had signed for themselves and that he could not be blamed for something that had not been proven. He said anyone could try to prove their case in court, and he would take responsibility if the court found him guilty.
A local committee in the village handed in a petition in April, signed by 85 residents, calling for Draganov to be removed from office before his term ends. On 25 June, the Levski municipal council refused to call a referendum, saying that ending a mayor's term is a matter for the municipal election commission, once the legal grounds are met.
In early May, GERB, the party that had put Draganov forward as mayor, expelled him, saying he had "damaged GERB's standing by abusing his official position." Levski municipality says Draganov has worked at the mayoralty since 1993 and has been mayor since 2018. As of 27 September, the state administration's register still lists him as mayor of Trunchovitsa.