Poisoned Arms Dealer Suggests Attackers Had Help Inside Bulgaria

SOFIA -- Emilian Gebrev, a Bulgarian businessman who fell into a coma in April 2015 with symptoms of severe poisoning, says he believes whoever was involved in the attack against him had help from inside Bulgaria.

Gebrev, a veteran of the Bulgarian arms industry, survived the poisoning, as did his son and a company executive who were treated for similar symptoms.

The case bears hallmarks of the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, who were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in 2018.

The British-based open-source investigation group Bellingcat said on February 14 that Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeyev, a high-ranking military intelligence officer and a graduate of Russia's Military Diplomatic Academy, arrived in Bulgaria just days before Gebrev fell ill. The investigative group says Sergeyev used an alias while in Bulgaria.

Bellingcat said Sergeyev is also suspected of being involved in the attack against the Skripals in Salisbury, having arrived in Britain two days before they were poisoned.

"External support is extremely important and powerful, but without any internal cooperation there is no way [the attack] can happen," Gebrev told RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service on February 20.

"The more I personally analyze what has happened so far, however cruel and ugly it sounds, it is the result of an extremely thoughtful, purposeful and consistent war on me, the company I lead and, analyzing the whole situation, on the companies in defense sector," Gebrev said.

An initial investigation into Gebrev’s poisoning found traces of the highly toxic insecticide chlorpyrifos in his coffee and food at his home -- but no substance banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention such as Novichok.

Little else, however, was discovered and no one was punished for the attack.

The Kremlin has disputed the findings of the new Bellingcat investigation implicating it in Gebrev’s poisoning.

'Close Partnership'

British and Bulgarian officials, however, said earlier in February that the case has been reopened and that the two countries have been "closely" coordinating their efforts for "several months."

"We are working in a joint team and a close partnership, and we are going to find out the facts in this case," U.K. Ambassador to Bulgaria Emma Hopkins told reporters in Sofia on February 11.

While Gebrev did not name Russia specifically as a co-conspirator in the attack against him, he told RFE/RL that reports of a Russian agent's involvement don't surprise him.

“It's not even a coincidence. It's overlapping interests, which are even stronger," Gebrev said, noting that it appears to indicate Moscow was involved in some way.

The Bulgarian arms dealer also criticized local investigators in Bulgaria, noting that the case was reopened only after pressure exerted by Britain because of the possible link between the attacks in Sofia and Salisbury.

“When the state wants to investigate, then it can. And when it doesn't want to, well, here it is 2019, four years later, and only now are they trying to understand what happened," Gebrev said.

Skripal and his daughter also survived after weeks in critical condition. But Dawn Sturgess, a British national who authorities said came in contact with the poison after her boyfriend found a fake perfume bottle containing it, died in July 2018.

British authorities have charged that two Russian men, identified by Bellingcat as agents of Russia's GRU intelligence services, carried out the Salisbury attack.

However, they have not identified a third suspect. Bellingcat has acknowledged that it’s "unclear what [Sergeyev's] role may have been, if any, in the preparation and execution of the poisoning operation."

Moscow has denied involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals using the highly toxic nerve-agent Novichok, which led to a series of sanctions against Russia by the West and tit-for-tat diplomatic actions.

Two men who British police say traveled under the aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Aleksandr Petrov and have ties to Russian military intelligence, have denied involvement. They say they are traveling vitamin salesmen who visited Salisbury to view its cathedral spire.