Witnesses Back Defendant in Bulgaria’s 2013 Illegal Ballot Papers Case

Workers at the "Multiprint" printing house have testified in court in favor of the sole defendant in the case concerning the illegal ballot papers discovered on the eve of the early elections on May 12, 2013.

The case is tried in the Sofia City Court under fast-track proceedings, as requested by the defendant, Rosen Zhelyazkov, former Chief Secretary of the Council of Ministers.

Zhelyazkov faces charges of failing to exercise adequate control over the storage of flawed ballot papers.

The trial is to determine whether the extra amount of some 351 000 ballot papers discovered during a police operation on May 11, 2013 at the "Multiprint" printing house had been fit for use in the early elections and could have resulted in election fraud.

Donka Borisova, the sole employee of the Kostinbrod-based printing house "Multiprint" who had been in charge of the expedition of the unspoiled ballot papers, insisted that the extra ballot papers were flawed because they had not been produced into blocks of 50, as the law required.

Borisova, as cited by Darik radio, noted that the extra ballots could not have been taken out of the printing house unnoticed due to the numerous CCTV cameras and the round-the-clock police protection.

The testimony of the other employees of "Multiprint" showed that the rooms where the flawed ballot papers had been stored had not been locked.

The owner of the Kostinbrod-based printing facility was revealed to have ties to center-right party GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria).

Zhelyazkov has refused to comment on the case.