At least 1,000 protesters and politicians have been illegally wiretapped during and after the months-long mass protests against the former government of Boyko Borissov and the chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev, said Nikolai Hadzhigenov, the head of the parliament’s special committee probing the police violence and illegal wiretapping during the protests.

The ‘Bulgarian Watergate’ scandal broke in May when Atanas Atanasov, one of the leaders of Democratic Bulgaria and a former chief of the counterintelligence services, claimed that 32 opposition politicians were wiretapped ahead of the April general election, including members of Democratic Bulgaria.

Several days later, protester leader Hadzhigenov of the 'Poisonous Trio' said he has evidence that more than 82 members of the opposition, as well as protesters, were illegally wiretapped during the mass anti-corruption protests last year and ahead of the April 4 vote.

After the July 11 snap election, the parliament set up the committee that is tasked to probe several cases of excessive use of police force, including beating and teargassing peaceful protesters last year. There were cases of hospitalised young people and a journalist who was arrested and beaten, as well as testimonies of sexual harassment of a young female protester.

At the start of its first session, Hadzhigenov said the committee already has the names of 140 illegally wiretapped persons but did not disclose them but said they include candidates for MPs, acting MPs, activists, journalists and a Sofia district prosecutor. These persons were wiretapped between July 14, 2020, and May 2021.

The committee’s head said that the wiretapping of some of those people was ordered personally by the chief prosecutor.

Hadzhigenov also said that the specialised court and the prosecution are sabotaging the committee’s work, refusing to send materials and claiming they were classified. Meanwhile, he also said that the committee has received already around 300 pages of classified reports of the interior ministry and videos showing the destruction of materials related to the illegal wiretapping by special services. On some videos, the faces of people destroying documents can be recognised.

At the same time, the prosecution has claimed several times it found no evidence of illegal wiretapping.