A gun, gold bars and cash in bed: mystery photo of PM has left a nation bamboozled
HE IS the prime minister of Bulgaria, a nation of seven million that is a member of the EU and a partner in Nato. So what were photos of Boyko Borisov in bed next to a handgun and a drawer full of €500 bills and gold bars doing on the internet?
The photographs were distributed to news outlets anonymously, published online last week and authenticated as genuine by experts for two investigative news websites. They have rocked the Balkan nation, and raised numerous questions about both Mr Borisov and his enemies.
Questions remain as to why Mr Borisov, a centre-right political leader who is an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, appears in these photos to be living like a B-movie gangster, keeping firearms, cash and gold at his bed stand as he sleeps.
One of the investigative news websites which analysed the photographs concluded that some of the photos were taken between 2017 and 2019.
A bigger question is who took the photos and why they were released?
Mr Borisov has angrily denounced the photos, seeming to authenticate them.
“The goal is to crush us mentally, then physically,” Mr Borisov said in a press conference, before joking: “At least they didn’t photograph me with a little boy in bed.”
Mr Borisov has accused a rival, Rumen Radev, a leader of the opposition Socialist Party, of using a drone to stalk him. Both men reside in villas near each other in of Sofia. Mr Radev denies the accusation.
Analysts have suggested that
Mr Radev is an unlikely culprit. Instead, they suspect that the photos are part of a political and legal war between Mr Borisov and Bulgarian gambling oligarch Vasil Bozhkov, who fled into exile in the UAE earlier this year after a falling out with the prime minister.
According to a Sofia insider, Mr Bozhkov had gathered other oligarchs to scheme against the prime minister after his government had insisted on more of a take from the country’s various business operations.
“There was a secret meeting of Bozhkov and other oligarchs,” the insider said, citing sources close to the country’s security apparatus. “They were discussing how to topple Borisov’s government.”
Mr Borisov reportedly found out about the meeting, prompting him to set prosecutors and tax collectors on Mr Bozhkov to pursue him on various financial crimes. In February, in absentia charges of murder and rape were added to Mr Bozhkov’s rap sheet.
But the gambling empire kingpin, who is said to control a fortune worth €1.32bn, has fought back, regularly leaking damaging information about senior Bulgarian officials on social media.
This month he claimed to have receipts and documents showing he had given Mr Borisov and finance minister Vladislav Gouranav the equivalent of €26.5m in “political protection” money to maintain his gambling empire.
Mr Borisov has denied the allegations.
Mr Borisov’s government has sought to nationalise Mr Bozhkov’s businesses, a move that the oligarch says he will challenge in court.