Demerdzhiev: Desislava Atanasova traveled with two passports, her personal one destroyed.

Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said on BNT that Atanasova had travelled using two passports.

A few days ago, Demerdzhiev presented information from the parliamentary rostrum that Atanasova had taken a private flight to Dubai together with Delyan Peevski. A day later, Atanasova said this was not true because on the same date she had flown on a commercial Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul and had not travelled to Dubai, which she said was also shown by the data in the register of Bulgaria’s Border Police.

Atanasova showed the data from her personal passport to support her statement.

Demerdzhiev urged the judge to be more precise when presenting facts and circumstances in an attempt to explain the situation. Ms. Atanasova forgot to clarify that she used both her diplomatic and personal passports during these trips, the minister added. He promised that they would be as precise as possible and would disclose the full information, as the matter is important for both Peevski and Atanasova.

The interior minister also stressed that the Interior Ministry’s Internal Security Directorate is currently checking whether there was deliberate distortion or manipulation of data in the ministry’s information systems regarding Atanasova’s travels. He said the main issue was the funding for these flights, with the claim that the money came from his family still to be clarified.

In response to a question about whether both passports can be used on a single trip, Demerdzhiev explained that it is not proper, but it is possible. Speaking on Bulgarian National Radio’s Nedelya 150, Progressive Bulgaria MP Yavor Gechev suggested that Peevski and Atanasova had boarded a private plane from Istanbul to Dubai.