The first trial, which the European Public Prosecutor’s Office filed in a Bulgarian court, ended with a suspended sentence in the first instance. Trajan Delyagov, a former employee of the State Agricultural Fund, is the first person brought to court in the case of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bulgaria, reports Rador with reference to Sega.bg.

At the end of July, a few days before his imprisonment, a specialized criminal court sentenced Delyagov to 6 months of conditional imprisonment with three years of supervision for extorting and accepting a bribe in the amount of 5,000, writes Lex.

The verdict of the collegium chaired by Stanimir Mirov is becoming clear only now, as it was not published until today. It is not final and can be appealed in the Sofia Court of Appeal.

The trial of the former employee of the State Agro-Industrial Fund ended only 6 months after it was submitted to a specialized court at the end of January. The 37-year-old former Fund expert was arrested last fall at a gas station in Sofia immediately after receiving 5,000 leva.

The investigation established that the expert demanded and received money from the agricultural producer Ilia Gangov from Plovdiv, who applied for 9 schemes within the framework of the Rural Development Program, which in Bulgaria is managed by the Agricultural Fund. The farmer was supposed to receive subsidies under the program in December 2020, but they never arrived.

At the beginning of 2021, he decided to ask for help, and an acquaintance gave him the name and phone number of an employee of the State Agricultural and Industrial Fund.

They met, and Delyagov explained that he knew why the payments were being delayed. However, if the businessman wanted to receive subsidies faster, he had to pay 5,000 leva. The requirement was to pay the same amount under each of the 9 schemes under which it was to receive subsidies.

A Fund employee collected part of the money during the first meetings with the businessman. After payment, he received almost 600,000 leva through several schemes and activities in the program.

However, in the summer, the expert asked for another 5,000 leva so that no more inspections of subsidies or implementation projects of the entrepreneur would be carried out, and if they were carried out, they would end positively for him.

The farmer then filed a complaint against the worker, and in early September 2021, he was arrested with 5,000 leva tagged. However, the court found him guilty only for the demanded 5,000 levs, which he took immediately before his arrest.

Although Delyagov was the first to be prosecuted by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the first verdict in Kovesi’s trial in Bulgaria dates back to July this year.

It was received by agreement and is already in effect.