The Guardian, Wednesday September 5, 2007 2:46 AM.

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - A special panel investigating Bulgaria's communist-era police files said Tuesday that the country's current president and 19 lawmakers who once collaborated with the secret service.

The panel began its work in April after a law passed in late 2006 forced open the pre-1989 communist-era secret service archives. The list of collaborators - 138 in all was published on the panel's Web site.

President Georgi Parvanov, who was named by the panel as a collaborator in July, appeared again on Tuesday's list because he is a former member of parliament. Parvanov, a communist historian, has denied being an informer, saying he only wrote a book review for a man who turned out to be a secret services officer.

Opponents, however, claim that many files in Parvanov's dossier are missing and were destroyed on his orders.
Also on the list were the names of 19 current members of parliament and 23 others who have held high positions under Parvanov or previous heads of state.

The commission is expected to eventually open the files of all key public figures, including politicians, senior officials, judges and journalists. The legislation does not stipulate any punishment for those named as collaborators.
The former communist State Security, disbanded after the 1989 collapse of the communist regime, included intelligence and counterintelligence offices, as well as political police.

Bulgaria is one of the last former communist nations to tackle the records of its past. Other countries with former communist regimes, including Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania, already have taken measures to open communist-era secret files.