The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office (SGP) has brought Bozhidar Bozhanov, a member of parliament from the 51st National Assembly, to criminal liability in pre-trial proceedings for a crime in office. He has been set a bail in the amount of 10,000 leva, the SGP press center announced.
The bringing to criminal liability became possible after on 28.02.2025, at the proposal of the SGP, the acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov submitted to the registry of the National Assembly a reasoned request for permission to bring B. Bozanov to criminal liability for a crime committed by him under Art. 282, para. 2, sentence 2, s. para. 1, sentence 1, alt. 2 of the Criminal Code and subsequently on 04.03.2025 B. Bozanov gave written consent to the lifting of his immunity.
Bozhidar Bozanov has been brought to criminal liability for the fact that in the period from 20.05.2022 to 17.06.2022 in the city of Sofia in his capacity as an official holding a responsible official position – Minister of e-Government and contracting authority for public procurement, has violated his official duties under the Classified Information Protection Act and the Regulations for its implementation and under the internal rules of the Ministry of e-Government for public procurement. According to the evidence collected during the pre-trial proceedings, Bozhidar Bozhanov provided the executive director of the Agency for “E-Government Infrastructure” with a flash drive file representing a technical specification, and instructed it to be used to conduct a public procurement for nearly 18 million leva.
The technical specification was prepared in violation of the established procedure guaranteeing the security of information. Thus, an advantage was given to a consortium of commercial companies in participating and ranking as a contractor for the public procurement. The goal was to obtain a benefit for another person – to facilitate and provide an advantage to the consortium in its participation in the public procurement, and the act could have resulted in significant harmful consequences – to spend public funds in an opaque manner, to create conditions for distorting competition, to undermine citizens' trust in the Ministry of e-Government and to endanger the cybersecurity of the state administration.
A significant amount of evidence was collected in the pre-trial proceedings, materials from an inspection by the State Financial Inspection Agency, carried out at the Ministry of e-Government by order of the State Prosecutor's Office, and materials from the State Agency "National Security" were also included.