“I will continue to serve as Agency for National Security Director. A lot of work is ahead for me”, Bojan Hristovski said on Wednesday, asked to comment on his election the previous day as Assistant Professor of Criminalistic Science at the Faculty of Security.
The Agency’s Director made those comments during a debate held precisely on the premises of the Faculty.
“I started my scientific activity here. The library here has a symbolic significance because this was where I defended my Master’s thesis on deradicalisation of ISIS returnees and terrorists”, he stated.
While he was delivering a speech at the Faculty, the Prosecutor’s Office was hosting a briefing where it said that there was a case against him on the basis of three anonymous criminal charges alleging two fake documents, that is, the English language certificate and faculty degree.
The Prosecutor’s Office has asked for international legal aid from Bulgaria because of the issue of the TOEFL certificate issued by Plovdiv-based Julia. Though the Faculty of Security has the certificate, the Office has so far not requested anything from that institution.
The Faculty’s stand is that it elected Hristovski as Assistant Professor because neither an investigation nor the procedure within the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption (SCPC) has been completed. During the debate, Hristovski said he’d inherited bad conditions within the Agency, stressing that there was no training centre and that internal control hadn’t been formed.
Regarding the issue of the merger, announced by the government’s representatives, of his institution and the Intelligence Agency, Hristovski stressed that the process wouldn’t be quick and that there would be deep analyses and use of experiences.
The debate on reforms within security services and agencies was organised by the Faculty as part of the efforts to adjust them to the new political and technological-digital situation and to overcome hitherto oversights.