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Tsvetan Vassilev, former majority owner of CCB, has lived in Serbia for six years. He fled there just ten days before an international arrest warrant was issued. Since 2014, Bulgaria has been insisting on Vassilev’s extradition. The Serbian Supreme Court has twice approved the extradition request, but the Court of Appeal has returned the case. Here, at the end of September, the Supreme Court of Belgrade allowed the extradition of a banker for the third time, arguing that all legal conditions had been met. Even today, the chances of being forcibly returned by Belgrade seem greater.
Tsvetan Vassilev is the main defendant in the mega case for the “Corporate Commercial Bank” affair: the collapse of the fourth largest bank in Bulgaria. He has been accused by the prosecution of 146 crimes as the leader of a criminal group responsible for the embezzlement of BGN 2,559 billion (EUR 1,308 billion) from the Corporate Commercial Bank and another BGN 205.9 million (almost EUR 105.3 million) from its main coffers. If Vassilev returns to Bulgaria, he will go directly to court, as the case has already started.
Vucic’s last word?
The current decision of the Serbian Supreme Court can be appealed to the Belgrade Court of Appeal within three days of its written submission. Vassilev’s lawyers have already announced that they will. If the appellate magistrates confirm the decision of the Supreme Court, the Serbian Ministry of Justice will have the last word on extradition, in accordance with article 31 of the Law on International Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.
So far, the Serbian Minister of Justice has not had to comment, as the Court of Appeals returned the case with the same explanations for violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure. But if this time it confirms the Supreme Court’s decision, it is not clear which justice minister will govern, the current one or another. As a new government is about to be formed in Belgrade, the voting deadline expires on November 3. It may be the current resigned cabinet justice minister, Nela Kuburovic. She is a representative of President Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party, which won the June elections by an impressive majority. However, given Vucic’s authoritarian rule, there is no doubt that any minister will be dictated by the president.
What is happening in Serbia?
In 2014, when the Corporate Commercial Bank collapsed, Belgrade began negotiations to join the European Union. At that time, the President of Serbia was Tomislav Nikolic (May 2012 – May 2017). Serbian media have revealed that the Bulgarian banker donated 1.2 million dinars (about 9,638 euros at the current exchange rate) to the foundation of his wife Dragica Nikolic. Nikolic confirmed the donation, saying it was made before the extradition request in 2014. However, according to a statement from a banker, the donation was not personal, but to the management of the glass factory he privatized in Paracin and dates back to 2015, when floods caused extensive damage in Serbia. However, the truth is that both requests for extradition, rejected by the Court of Appeals, are within the mandate of the former Serbian ultranationalist.
The current extradition decision comes after the Supreme Court of Serbia ordered an investigation into Sofia’s request, the third day after a letter sent by Bulgarian Attorney General Ivan Geshev to the General Secretariat of the Council of Europe and the Committee. European of Criminal Problems. In February, he informed them about the difficulties in the extradition of Vassilev, and the presidents of the European Parliament and the EC received copies with a view to “future assessment of Serbia’s readiness as an EU candidate and the rule of law in the proceedings judicial “. In 2016, Geshev’s predecessor, Sotir Tsatsarov, also wrote a letter to the European institutions about the same, but then there were no consequences.
The Serbian opposition has already repeatedly called for Tsvetan Vassilev to be returned to Bulgaria, recalling how it privatized the glass factory in Paracin, now bankrupt. Public accusations were also made against the government that they were providing him with political protection. The Bulgarian banker has become increasingly visible to Serbian politicians and institutions in the context of signals from Brussels that the long delay in his extradition will not be tolerated.
Too many people fear his extradition
If Belgrade returns him, Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev will take credit for his tenure, at his insistence, at a time when protesters want his resignation for a third month, along with Prime Minister Borissov. Geshev had even stated that Russia was protecting Vassilev, played by the banker’s lawyer Hristo Botev that “Geshev wants to appear before the Americans.”
Regardless of what they say about it, one thing is clear: Russia’s Vneshtorgbank (VTB), which had a stake in KTB, played a key role in the sale of Vivacom to the United Group of Serbia in July 2020. A shareholder of the Serbian company is KKR, based in the United States. A partner in KKR, a powerful venture capital fund, is former CIA chief Gen. David Petraeus, who also plans KKR’s investments in Southeast Europe. In 2018, Petraeus, who was also the commander-in-chief of NATO forces in Afghanistan, turned down an invitation from US President Donald Trump to take over as defense minister.
This practically Russian-American deal for Vivacom, which Tsvetan Vassilev criticized in interviews, was made possible after the Bulgarian Anti-Corruption Commission refused to claim more than 365 million BGN (almost 187 million euros) drained by the Corporate Commercial Bank. . With the refusal of these sums, the claims of the State, which demanded more than 2,200 million BGN from Tsvetan Vassilev, his family and 24 companies were “softened”.
Vassilev may be happy to talk about the schemes through which the largest Bulgarian telecommunications company passes from one hand to another, but is silent about the others. Everyone who ruled Bulgaria during this century is involved in one way or another in the heyday of CCB to the country’s fourth largest bank. In the indictment, their names do not match those of the 18 defendants. There are no ministers and prime ministers, no politicians, no “Peevski-Dogan clan”, no “Borisov clan”, as Vassilev calls them. Were there verbal orders to the heads of state companies to transfer accounts to the Corporate Commercial Bank? Was the “Kostinbrod affair” paid for? What party leaders, what media, besides TV7, fed KTB? Whose bank-financed luxury travel is costing taxpayers over BGN 6 billion? Who and how laundered money through offshore companies and how much is exported?
Too many people in Bulgaria fear the extradition of Tsvetan Vassilev. If Belgrade allows it, the banker better speak in advance.
Serbia
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