Chief Secretary of the Internal Affairs Ministry Petar Todorov announced that he and his deputy, Stanimir Stanev, would leave their posts following a clash between police officers and migrants.
In Sofia on Tuesday, a bus with migrants was incercepted by the police on the city’s ring road, resulting in a high speed chase. The driver crashed into a police van and one officer is in a critical condition in hospital. Todorov and Stanev announced their resignation outside of the hospital.
Three migrants, all of Syrian origin, were also injured.
“Today, my colleague Stanimir Stanev and I are submitting our resignation to the minister. It is high time for a change in the law to protect our police officers who stop migrants at the risk of their lives,” said Todorov.
He insists that traffickers should be sentenced to prison as out of nearly 4,000 criminal cases for human trafficking in Bulgaria in 2021, only 158 were convicted.
“Let the court and the prosecutor’s office, considering these cases, be especially careful that by sentencing these people to a fine, they come back again and face the policemen,” urged Todorov.
The driver of the bus with migrants is a 43-year-old Bulgarian with a vast criminal record.
In August, two police officers died after a bus carrying migrants rammed into a patrol woman trying to stop it in the Black Sea city of Burgas.
In October, a Bulgarian border policeman was shot through the Turkish border fence. In this case, two brothers were arrested in Turkey who are suspected of trafficking migrants through Turkey, Bulgaria to Western Europe.
(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
Source: euractiv.com
