• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Thane,One question you asked was if a Bulgarian prison was like a Canadian prison. Myimmediate answer was NO. However, I have never been in a Canadian prison andexcept for my stay in Germany have no experience with other prisons. So maybe it is better if I write you a short story that gives you a description of the place where I am.A lot of things came back to me after I had a chance to read the first version of thisstory. Below, marked in red are my changes. If I had more time there would be a lotmore memories returning. Maybe the additions and changes will add something to whatyou already have. Its 24 pages and I hope you are not bored by it. This is the last andthere won’t be anymore coming from me unless you ask. Again, please forgive all thetypos. There is really so little time and resources to print this out and read it as carefullyas I would like. Also excuse the poor metaphors and occasional soap box I choose tostand on. Sometime I forget this is not speakers’ corner at Hyde Park and get carriedaway.Again I thank you for the interest of the Toronto Star in my family and me. Maybesomeone will find our continued suffering to be unjustified and will find a way to help.I have written so many pleading letters to Canada’s politicians and few ever write back.Clearly they have never been to a prison the likes of those in Bulgaria or else theysimply don’t care, neither about me or any other Canadian who really needs their help.
THE SOFIA CENTRAL PENITENTIARYSOFIA BULGARIAFOREIGN PRISONERS SECTION
Getting to Bulgaria
My odyssey as a Canadian about to move through the bowls of Bulgaria’s judicial and penal system started on September 2
nd
1996. This is almost exactly seven months to theday after I was arrested at Frankfurt International Airport by German police.The German’s arrested me on February 7
th
1996. I was arrested because Bulgarian police had issued an international arrest warrant that alleged I was the head of aCanadian pseudo religious cult operating out of Vancouver BC.According to the Bulgarian warrant it was the Canadian police who had informedBulgarian authorities that I was heading up an international money launderingoperation in Europe and in Bulgaria. According to the warrant I had succeeded indefrauding 9,500 Bulgarian citizens by getting them to place 16,000,000 USD in cash“trust deposits” with my companyand that. AllegedlyI later embezzledthe money by wiringthe money itthrough the Caribbean to accounts of the “cult” inVancouver, BC Canada.
19305749.docPage 1 of 33
 
Later, this all proved to be nothing but libelous nonsense and formed the legal groundsfor one of the lawsuits in BC.On July 22 2002, some 6 years, 5 months and 15 days after my arrest the Sofia CityCourt of Appeal acquitted me of the original 1996 allegations. I had been on trial,without a “final” charge for more than 6 years.The Court of Appeal dismissing the lower court conviction was positive only in that itexoneratedme of the fraud and embezzlement of public funds and by provingconfirmingthe original accusations and charges to be legallyimpossibleand factuallyimpossible. But, untrue.It could not end there, I had already been in prison nearly 7 years. My imprisonmenthad to somehow be justified and sothe Court of Appeal decided to bring a new charge by and“re-qualifyingqualified” the facts andcharging charged mewith one count of  having embezzled approximately 165,000 USD in embezzlement. The amount I wasalleged to have misappropriated was “in real money” about 165,000 USD. These arecorporate funds belongingthat belongedto the Bulgaria Company. A company I controlled. There was no money involved that belonged to any individuals.I hadincorporatedthe Bulgarian companyin 1993 and owned 75% of theitsshares and controlled100the other 25%. This was not the crime for which the German’s extraditedme.A fact that bothers me to this moment is the failure of Canada Foreign Affairs toengage the German government in reevaluating Bulgarian compliance with the terms of extradition.The crime of embezzlement according to Bulgarian law is a felony and is punishable byimprisonment from 10 to 30 years.In Germany and Canada embezzlement is punishable by no more than 10 years.At the timein Bulgaria it wasonly murder thatcarried aheavyheavier sentence of 15 to 20 years, life or the death penalty whichthen at wasunder amoratorium. I was sentenced to serve 17 years in a maximum security prison, an improvement fromthe 23 year sentence that . An earlier court had sentence me to serve a 23 year sentence.Thiswas set aside withthe myacquittal. by the Court of Appeal.This isa big improvement, but it is stillthe heaviest sentencefor embezzlement ever given to a non-government officialin modern Bulgarian judicialhistoryand . I was,and remain, todaythe ONLY business manbusinessman ever convicted of such a crime in Bulgaria.So onOnSeptember 2
nd
of 1996 Ileft a German prison hospital andstartedthe tripmy  journeyto Sofia Bulgaria. The plane was a Soviet era Tupolev 156. I was accompanied by 4 plain cloths policemen and 1 doctor.That’s because I had been taken to the placeon a stretcher after having been forcefully dragged unconscious out off my hospital bed
19305749.docPage 2 of 33
 
 by German police.The German prosecutor had asked for the doctor because he wasgoing to have me forcefully removed from my hospital bed and then deliver me to theBulgarian police on a stretcher. This time the German prosecutor was not going to beembarrassed as he had been before by a prison doctor. The Bulgarian police had cometop collect me the month, August. They returned to Bulgaria empty handed because aGerman prison doctor had only hours before told the German prosecutor that my healthwould not allow her to approve the extradition.The day before the German Prosecutor had decided my hunger strike was embarrassinghim in front of before the Bulgarian authorities and so he decided to have me policeremove from the hospital by force. The Bulgarian Balkan Airlines plane and policewere waiting at the airport and this time the German prosecutor was not goingembarrassed as before by a prison doctor.The whole rear of the Balkan airlines flight, some 100 seats, was left intentionallyempty except for me and these 5I will never forget her, and the last words she said tome; “I hope this buys you enough time so Canada can do something”. So did I, but Idid not know then that my arrest by Bulgaria was because of a Canadian policeofficer’s lies and a written Canadian RCMP request for me to be prosecuted inBulgaria. There wasn’t going to be any help that day or for the next few years comingfrom Canada.This time the German Prosecutor was not going to be embarrassed by either a doctor or my hunger strike. So he decided to have order German police to remove me from thehospital by force.On the morning of my departure two uniformed German police arrived and orderedhospital staff to remove my IV. I remember the German police officers swearing at meas I stood up off then bed and not so gracefully passed out in front of them. I canremember falling for what seems like minutes of the world spinning around as thehospital floor approached. It was with a thump that I hit the floor. It sounded very muchlike a rather large sack of potatoes. Before I completely lost consciousness I heard thewords “Slavic pig” and “bastard Jew” uttered by these two German policemen. It wassaid with a lot of great contempt. Obviously they were not looking forward to carryingthis rather large Canadian into the back seat of their car. The “Jew” surprised me because, on the advice of my father I was not to tell anyone that my grandparents andfather were Jews.Very unceremoniously they ordered two convicts to grab one leg each and another twoto grab an arm each and carry me unconscious out of the hospital to the waiting policecar. I later regained consciousness in the police car and asked the policemen why theywere treating me so harshly. They explained that I was a Bulgarian and could not stayin Germany. I later learned they believed this because the Bulgarian Prosecutor hadwritten the German Prosecutor that I was “a Bulgarian citizen hiding behind a Canadian passport”. To the German’s I was never a “real Canadian”. I have never been a citizen
19305749.docPage 3 of 33
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...