[JURIST] A Bulgarian special panel investigating the country's communist-era police records said Tuesday that current Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov [official profile] and 19 other lawmakers collaborated with the country's communist-era secret service [Wikipedia backgrounder]. The panel, created under legislation declassifying communist-era files [JURIST report], has published a list of 138 people who collaborated with the secret service. Parvanov insists that he is included on the list merely because he wrote a book review for a person who turned out to be a secret service agent, but opponents say that Parvanov ordered the destruction of many of the files on his specific involvement.

The panel will continue to review the files of those suspected of collaborating with the secret service, including public officials and journalists. The legislation that created the commission, however, includes no recommendation for punishment if officials are found to have done so. AP has more.