Bulgaria Nationalist Leader Volen Siderov Gives Up Immunity

Volen Siderov, who heads the ultra-nationalist party Ataka, has renounced the immunity he enjoys as a lawmaker in order to face prosecution.

Parliament Speaker Tsetska Tsacheva announced at the beginning of Wednesday's plenary session that Siderov had submitted the day before a declaration to request the move.

Siderov's immunity was demanded by Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov in mid-November.

Ataka's leader is accused of hooliganism (he verbally assaulted a French cultural attaché during a Sofia-Varna flight in January) and infliction of minor injuries to a police officer.