News Lelemuku

SOFIA, LELEMUKU.COM - Bulgaria will investigate reports that a new suspect in the Skripal nerve agent attack in Britain may also have been involved in a 2015 poisoning in Bulgaria, a ruling party lawmaker said Saturday.

A parliamentary committee will on Thursday seek information from the intelligence services following a new investigation into the attempted poisoning of local businessman Emiliyan Gebrev, said Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the parliamentary leader of the ruling GERB party.

"I am certain that the necessary coordination has already been set up between the Bulgarian, British and European authorities on the case and they are working actively on it," he added.

The statement was the first official reaction in Bulgaria to a report issued last week by the investigative website Bellingcat.

That report identified a hitherto unknown third suspect in last year's attack in Salisbury, England, on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Russian role alleged

Skripal and his adult daughter were discovered unconscious on a Salisbury park bench after they had been poisoned by the highly toxic nerve agent Novichokin an attack the British government said was "almost certainly" approved by the Russian state.

Although they both recovered, a British woman died last June after her partner picked up a discarded perfume bottle that investigators believe was used to carry the Novichok.

British-based group Bellingcathas already used open-source techniques to identify two Russian military intelligence officers, Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, accused by Britain of carrying out the attack.

Despite Russian denials that they were involved, both men are now the subject of EU sanctions.

Bellingcat'slatest report identifies a third man — named by his alias "Sergey Fedotov" — as being involved in the British attack, having arrived in Britain two days before the Skripals were poisoned.

They concluded that the same man may also have been involved in the attempted poisoning in April 2015 ofGebrev, a veteran of the Bulgarian arms industry.

Presence in Sofia

"Fedotov" is said to have flown into Sofia from Moscow just days before Gebrevcollapsed at a reception there on April 28, 2015, and fell into a coma with symptoms of severe poisoning.

His son and one of his company executives were treated with similar symptoms, although all three recovered.

On Friday, the Bulgarian weekly newspaper Capital cited Interior Ministry sources as confirming Fedotov's itinerary in Bulgaria.

The Salisbury attack, the first offensive use of chemical weapons in Europe since World War II, caused an international outcry and prompted a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by Western nations — but not by Bulgaria. (VOA)

BRUSSELS, LELEMUKU.COM - The European Union on Wednesday warned countries running lucrative schemes granting passports and visas to rich foreigners to toughen checks on applicants amid concern they could be flouting security, money laundering and tax laws.

EU countries have welcomed in more than 6,000 new citizens and close to 100,000 new residents through golden passport and visa schemes over the past decade, attracting around 25 billion euros ($28 billion) in foreign direct investment, according to anti-corruption watchdogs Transparency International and Global Witness.

In a first-ever report on the schemes, the EU Commission said that such documents issued in one country can open a back door to citizenship or residency in all 28 states.

Justice Commissioner Vera Jurova said golden visas are the equivalent of "opening the golden gate to Europe for some privileged people."

"We want more guarantees related to security and anti-money laundering. We expect more transparency," she told reporters in Brussels.

Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta offer passports to investors without any real connections to the countries or even the obligation to live there by paying between 800,000 and 2 million euros ($909,000 to $2.3 million).

Twenty EU states offer visas in exchange for investment: Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

Investment can range from 13,500 euros to over 5 million euros ($15,350 to $5.7 million) in the form of capital and property investments, buying government bonds, one-time payments to the national budget or certain donations to charity.

Cyprus toughened up vetting procedures last year after it was accused of running a "passports-for-cash" scheme. It said passport numbers would be capped at 700 a year.

The Mediterranean island introduced the scheme in the wake of a 2013 financial crisis that brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy and forced it to accept a multibillion-euro rescue program from creditors. One Cyprus lawmaker has estimated that the scheme generated around 4.8 billion euros ($5.4 billion) between 2013 and 2016.

In compiling the report, Commission researchers struggled to obtain clear information about how the schemes are run, the number of applicants and where they come from, as well as how many are granted or refused visas. They noted that EU countries exchange little or no information about the applicants.

But the report did find that the security checks run on applicants are insufficient, and it recommends that EU computer databases like the one controlling Europe's passport-free travel area be used routinely. Tougher "due diligence" controls are also needed to ensure that money laundering rules are not circumvented, while more monitoring and reporting could help tackle tax evasion.

Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the Commission "will monitor full compliance with EU law."

"The work we have done together over the past years in terms of increasing security, strengthening our borders and closing information gaps should not be jeopardized," he warned.

The Commission proposed setting up a working group with EU member countries to study the schemes by year's end.

The report angered Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, who underlined that, over the past five years, the number of citizenships granted by Cyprus under its scheme amounts to 0.3 percent of the EU's total.

He said that Cyprus has the toughest citizenship criteria among all 20 countries, "and despite this, Cyprus is being targeted."

"These double standards must finally come to an end and I want to be strict about this," Anastasiades said.

Malta welcomed the Commission report, but said it has "reservations on a few issues," notably that people it accepts under the schemes undergo far more rigorous checks than others granted residency or citizenship. It also underlined that physical presence in Malta is mandatory. (VOA)