Bulgaria ex-PM released

Police released Bulgaria’s ex-prime minister Boyko Borisov on Friday a day after arresting him as part of a probe into suspected extortion and possible misuse of EU funds.

The 62-year-old and several other members of his party were detained on Thursday in what the interior ministry said was an initial probe into allegations of extortion that was also matched by EU prosecutors. “They came into my home while we were having dinner,” Borisov said after his release in comments broadcast on television.

Searching his home, authorities “did not find anything and when I thought they were leaving, they told me: ‘We have to arrest you,” he added. “It was brutal and disgusting. We have returned to the time of communism.”

He said he had not been charged. Two other members of his party were also released without charge.

Prosecutors found procedural flaws with the police probe and lack of enough evidence to file an indictment, Sofia City Prosecution spokeswoman Desislava Petrova said.

The announcement prompted an angry reaction from Bulgaria’s new anti-graft Prime Minister Kiril Petkov and Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov. “We are faced with just the next sabotage on the part of the prosecution headed by (Chief Prosecutor) Ivan Geshev,” Petkov said at a midnight briefing.

Thousands of Bulgarians had taken to the streets for months on end in 2020 to protest Borisov’s government’s perceived corruption and to demand Geshev’s resignation.