Bulgaria’s Top Prosecutor Asks for More Staff at Border to Cope with Migration Pressure

Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov has asked for additional funding and staff for the prosecution offices and courts in the regions bordering Grece and Turkey in view increased workload related to migratory pressure.

There is a shortage of investigating police officers, judges and prosecutors, Tsatsarov has said in a letter to the Supreme Judicial Council, according to public radio broadcaster BNR.

The Chief Prosecutor gave as an example the town of Tsarevo, near the border with Turkey, in which an investigating police officer and three prosecutors had completed the investigation of 27 cases of illegal border crossing within 48 hours as of June 16, BNR said on Tuesday. Rulings in those cases had been issued by the only two criminal judges stationed in Tsarevo.

Tsatsarov urged the SJC to act fast to make sure that a positive response to his plea to help understaffed prosecutors’ offices was given before the council’s summer recess beginning on July 15.

Bulgarian border police had detained a total of 1,858 irregular migrants crossing from Turkey in the first five months of 2016, about half of the number recorded in the same period last year, according to Interior Ministry data.