02 11 2007 Sofia _ Bulgaria’s national ombudsman’s office is the only state institution in the country that has not employed people connected to the communist-era secret police, according to Bulgaria’s official watchdog.
Ekaterina Boncheva, member of the Personnel Records Commission, told a news conference on Thursday that out of the 3,765 people whose files had been examined, 620 turned out to have worked for state security before 1990.
Boncheva expressed the Commission’s thanks to the Bulgarian public.
"We would not be able to do our job without the support of the citizens and the media," Boncheva said.
She added that over 900 applications for access to the personnel records had been received.
Boncheva was speaking after attending a conference on the subject of managing the heritage of the Bulgarian Communist Party.
She said the archives of the former DS secret police included 20 km of shelves, compared to the 180 km containing the records of the former East Germany’s Stasi.
Most of the personal files are kept in the Interior Ministry's 30 departments.
An estimated 41 per cent of the files have been destroyed, most of them in 1990 under instructions from the then Interior Minister and vice-President General Atanas Semerdjiev, who was jailed five years ago for his role in the operation.
The issue of the personal files re-emerged in May after the interior ministry selectively made public the names of several prominent individuals who had alleged cooperated with the communist-era secret police.
President Georgi Parvanov was among those named.
Under pressure from the public, the Socialist-led governing coalition has opened up the archives. (Birn)
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