At the signal of the State Agency for National Security, the Specialized Prosecutor's Office instituted a pre-trial proceedings for a crime against the Republic of Bulgaria - for a foreign citizen collecting information constituting a state secret in order to provide it to a foreign state or organization. 104, para 1 of the Penal Code).
In the course of the investigation was established that in the period from 2017 to the present, a citizen of the Russian Federation has carried out intelligence activities by which military information was collected, incl. concerning the number of US servicemen stationed on the territory of Bulgaria. The aim was to pass on the collected information constituted as state secret to the Russian military intelligence. In order to carry out his illegal activity, the Russian citizen had connextion with a Bulgarian citizen who had access to the relevant classified information.
It has been established that the Russian citizen enjoys diplomatic status. According to Article 31, item 1 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, despite the existence of grounds for bringing him in charge of a crime under Art. 104, para. 1 of the Penal Code, the criminal proceedings against the foreign citizen have been suspended on the grounds of Art. 25, para. 1 item 3 of the PPC - "the perpetrator is a person with immunity".
In this regard, on December 17, 2020, the Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev officially informed the Minister of Foreign Affairs about what was established in the course of the investigation and the actions taken.