The prosecutor’s collegium started a disciplinary case against the district military prosecutor of Sofia

The prosecutor’s collegium opened disciplinary proceedings against the head of the Military District Prosecutor’s Office in Sofia, Adalbert Krastev. At the end of March i.f. Chief Prosecutor Borislav Sarafov requested the dismissal of Krastev due to numerous violations and non-fulfillment of duties by the Military District Prosecutor of Sofia.

The violations were found during a complex inspection carried out by prosecutors from the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office and the Military Appellate Prosecutor’s Office for the work of the VOP from the beginning of 2022 to the middle of last year.

The inspectors found violations of the random selection in the allocation of cases, as 74 files and pre-trial proceedings were allocated to a duty prosecutor instead of randomly, reported lex.bg. Again, in violation of these rules, files on the execution of 15 sentences were also distributed.

By Krastev’s orders, groups were also set up at the military investigators for the random distribution of cases, although at that time, according to the Law on the Judiciary (ZSV), the investigators could only carry out investigations on pre-trial proceedings, but not on files.

During the inspection, it was also established that certified copies of secondment orders were required from state institutions and it was ordered that the materials for each seconded person be filed under a separate number as a separate file.

“As a result of the letters, 1,561 files were created in the State Prosecutor’s Office-Sofia, which led to a distortion of the data on the workload of the prosecutors, including the data on the average workload of all district prosecutors’ offices,” said Borislav Sarafov.

In violation of the ZSV, Adalbert Krastev also prepared dozens of unmotivated proposals to the Military Appellate Prosecutor’s Office-Sofia to carry out an instance control of acts of prosecutors from the Military Appeals Office-Sofia.

“In them, he indicated that after a “personal inspection” he found that the law was not applied correctly and the decree was unfounded. Thus, the obligation of the administrative head not to express opinions on cases and files that were not assigned to him was not fulfilled.” says Borislav Sarafov’s proposal for Krastev’s dismissal.

In it, he emphasizes that he wants the most severe disciplinary punishment for Krastev “given the numerous disciplinary violations committed by the administrative head of the Military District Prosecutor’s Office-Sofia and the systematic failure to fulfill his official duties”.

Prosecutor Adalbert Krastev was a witness in the case against Georgi Semerdzhiev. He is the prosecutor who arrived immediately after the police at the scene of the serious accident with two victims on Cherni Vrah Boulevard in July 2022 and caused a series of questions about how and why he ended up among the first at the scene of the accident. He later explained to the court that he was traveling and accidentally passed the intersection, and when he saw what happened, he tried to help.

This is not the first request for disciplinary punishment against prosecutor Krastev. In May 2015, the then chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov also submitted to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) a request for the removal from office of the prosecutor from the Military District Prosecutor’s Office – Sofia, Major Adalbert Krastev. The reason for the requested release of Krastev was that an investigation was conducted against him for a documented crime.