Former interior minister and DPS MP Kalin Stoyanov has accused current minister Ivan Demerdzhiev of using people with criminal records to give false testimony and solving their problems in return. Stoyanov made the claim in a written statement.

It follows yesterday's raid by the organised crime unit (GDBOP) and Sofia police (SDVR) in Gurkovo. SDVR director chief commissioner Nikolay Peltekov told reporters that four people aged 31 to 54 had been detained. Later in the day it emerged that they had been released without charge. One of them owns the Bulmetal plant, which Stoyanov describes as a local business.

See also: Four held in Gurkovo as police check links to Sofia inquiry

The case involves a tracking device that was used illegally as a special technical means. Peltekov said the report came from the people the devices were used against. They had suspicions, and SDVR itself found the trackers. Stoyanov calls this claim "strange".

He calls the raid a "fiasco" and believes the case is invented. He says it was supposedly "delicate" work, although it was publicly described as "spectacular".

Stoyanov says a father and son from Gurkovo, Mariyan and Georgi Tsonev, are behind the case. He named them publicly three or four days ago. He says the two appear in many pre-trial proceedings, prosecutors' files and reports of financial fraud, beatings, arson, bribery, bodily harm, attempted murder and perjury. There is no information that charges have been brought against them.

The MP says Georgi Tsonev is very close to Demerdzhiev and has told others "he is the man". Through a middleman, the son tells the minister what to do. Stoyanov believes that, because of their problems with the interior ministry, the prosecutors and the courts, the two agreed to become "Koshar-style witnesses" in return for protection from the minister.

He gives two examples. In what he calls the "fabricated" case against Radoslav Revanski, Dimitar Gavazov and Hristo Shirokov, the main open witness is Mariyan Tsonev, while Georgi probably takes part with another status. In the case behind the Gurkovo raid, Mariyan Tsonev is the "victim" and probably the main witness.

The four detained men, in turn, are key witnesses in several cases against the father and son, Stoyanov says. He says Georgi Tsonev has a serious conflict with them that everyone in the town knows about, and is looking for a way to deal with them.

The scheme Stoyanov describes starts with one open witness and one or two anonymous ones. A prosecutor, a judge and an arrest follow. Then middlemen press the detainees to give false testimony against people named by the organisers. The MP claims the father and son are behind all the "fabricated" cases so far: the Burgas water utility, Radoslav Revanski, Hristo Shirokov, Dimitar Gavazov and the owner of the Gurkovo business.

Stoyanov says he has information that, with the minister's consent, Georgi Tsonev travels with a large security detail and is often escorted by police cars. He also says police give him "green corridors" in the town.

According to the MP, a close family friend of Demerdzhiev runs it all. The friend co-owns a hotel complex in Ravda. Stoyanov says he has claimed that he commands the minister and that everything in the interior ministry, from the deputy minister down, depends on him.

Stoyanov also claims that Demerdzhiev is using the networks of Pepi "the Euro" and Martin "the Notary" to look for a way to end a case in which he himself is a defendant. He says the minister is also trying to control people in the justice system for personal gain. The system is used for political ends, and some senior officials are under "manual control" by people with a dubious past, he adds.

"The interior ministry is run by people with criminal records, who keep not only the minister on his knees," Stoyanov writes. He calls the ministry a "structure for settling scores through cynical and laughably cobbled-together pre-trial proceedings".

Stoyanov says Demerdzhiev owes answers. The MP asks how long the minister will use discredited people to settle political scores with the opposition, and how long he will let the ministry be a tool in the hands of people with criminal records. He also asks who the next "arranged" "Koshar-style" witnesses will be.