Translated by Ollie Richardson

13:25:08
31/08/2017

riafan.ru

One of the most well-known Bulgarian investigative journalists Dilyana Gaytandzhieva was called in for questioning by the State Agency for National Security, where she was asked to report about who transferred documents proving the deliveries of Bulgarian weapons to units of “Al-Qaeda” in Syria. Referring to the right of the journalist not to disclose information sources, which is provided by Bulgarian legislation, she rejected the request of the employees of the State Agency for National Security. On the same day she learned that the “Trud” newspaper severed the employment contract they had with her. The correspondent of the Federal News Agency reports about this from the place of events reports.

Dilyana Gaytandzhieva was born in the small Bulgarian city of Yambol, and managed to graduate from the most prestigious university in the country — Sofia University in “Television journalism”. Then she worked for television companies — Nova and TV-7. She gained popularity after her investigations into corrupt politicians and organized crime. Since 2013, she began to make many-months business trips to Syria. In the same year her documentary “Red Line”, and one year later “The market of terrorists” appeared.

In the interview that Dilyana Gaytandzhieva gave to the FAN about these documentaries, she said the following: “During those years all Bulgarian media said that in Syria freedom fighters were fighting against a dictatorship. That’s why my purpose was to show to Bulgarians who these fighters actually are. The leadership of the TV-7 television channel didn’t know that to do with the documentaries that contradicted the official point of view and, in the end, we found a compromise solution: they were broadcasted, but only once and at midnight. Thus, very few people saw them”.

Indeed, even I, who professionally looked at Bulgarian TV information, learned about these films only during preparation for the interview with Dilyana Gaytandzhieva. Although several years has passed since they were filmed, and in Syria a lot of things changed, they still leave a strong impression and tell many interesting facts about those who, according to American and European media, fight for democracy in Syria and Iraq.

The films show many mass executions that happen in the territories controlled by ISIS and “Jabhat al-Nusra”. And people are not only shot, but their throats are also cut, they are crucified on a cross, and even thrown off roofs and through the windows of houses. Recall an interview with a mullah with a cut-off ear and a broken leg. The commander of “Al-Qaeda” who was taken prisoner in the province the Tartus Abdukhader Al Sakhili [spelling may be incorrect – ed] claims that all means are good in the fight against the authorities of Syria: murdering civilians, terrorism with the use of children suicide bombers, and even cannibalism — eating the heart of a killed soldier of the Syrian army for the purpose of intimidating others.

Dilyana Gaytandzhieva was the first to raise the topic of so-called sex jihad. The Bulgarian journalist interviewed Sara Alam [spelling may be incorrect – ed] sitting in a Syrian prison, who gave the details: “I became a member of ‘Al-Qaeda’ in the 10th grade. I attended religious courses held in the city of Mukomal [spelling may be incorrect – ed] . There a sheikh from Iraq was the teacher. He was connected with the Al-Qaeda organization and convinced us that those who are not with ‘Al-Qaeda’ are wrong. In the beginning there were 10 girls, then it became much more. He told us that we have to have sex with anyone who is from ‘Al-Qaeda’ and it is authorized by religion. He gave references from the Koran and a statement from the prophet Muhammad. After these lessons ended and events in Syria began, the jihad of girls also began. I had sex with the brother of one of the girls and with other men. Two from Libya, one from Tunisia, one from Morocco, and one more from Egypt. Then I was with a Turk, a Frenchman, then with two men from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We had sex with each member of ‘Al-Qaeda’ who wanted it, and we took 300-400 dollars”.

It is interesting that besides ideological prostitutes there were also sex slaves, some of which their own husbands gave away. Fatima, whose husband sold her for 5000 Syrian pounds (25 dollars) remembers: “I was put in one of the rooms, a scarf was tied around my eyes and hands. In 12 hours I got married and divorced six men”. Using the fact that in Islam for divorce a man only needs to say three times in the presence of witnesses the phrase “You are not my wife anymore!”, “Al-Qaeda” managed to make sexual violence and prostitution a form of marriage.

The provocation of Islamists who accused the Syrian army of using chemical weapons is also convincingly exposed in the films, and a video of the children poisoned to death in Ghouta 30 km from Damascus is provided. However, among the dead children parents distinguished those who were earlier kidnapped by Islamists in Latakia — at the other end of Syria as a part of a group of 105 hostages that were subjected to attempts to exchange them for captured members of “Al-Qaeda”. However, nobody in the West yet paid attention to Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s exposure, and as a result the tragedy was repeated in 2017.

The film shows Christian churches and shrines scorned by Islamists, video statements of their leaders about the need to destroy all those who want democracy and a constitution instead of Allah’s will. And all of this was filmed in 2013-14, when all western media agencies presented the legitimate authority of Syria as a fiend that is opposed by the holy fighters for democracy. Now even the most fanatical democrats started to admit that Bashar al-Assad is not so bad, and his enemies are not so good.

It is interesting to watch Dilyana Gantadzhiyeva’s films even for those who can’t speak the Bulgarian language:

And this is not only my opinion. Appreciation for the film “Red Line” was given by professionals, having awarded Dilyana Gaytandzhieva on November 1st, 2013, the day after its broadcast, the award of the Union of the Bulgarian journalists. In an interview she spoke about other reactions to her film: “After the release of the movie I began to receive insults on the Internet from representatives of the so-called opposition living in Bulgaria. They claimed that I was bought off by Bashar al-Assad’s regime and I filmed the movie on his money”. However, this reaction shows that the film doesn’t leave anybody indifferent.

In an interview to the FAN Dilyana Gaytandzhieva pointed out one other paradox in the work of western journalists in Syria: “Foreign journalists, primarily Americans, claim that a dictator is fighting against moderate opposition who seek to establish democracy in Syria. But for some reason they don’t highlight the course of the war against them. On the contrary, they create reporting under the protection of the soldiers of Bashar al-Assad. In the beginning there were attempts to begin work on the other side, but well-known journalists were immediately kidnapped there and released only after multimillion payoffs, and unknown freelancers were simply killed. And yet western journalists continue to say in reports that the honest revolutionaries, who came from 86 countries, are fighting against a dictatorship to help the Syrian people, although they perfectly know that this is an absolute lie”.

However, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva managed to talk to one of the leaders of the Free Syrian Army Colonel Malik al-Kurdi. Regarding this meeting she recalls: “My meeting with him happened in Turkey, near the Syrian border. The Colonel already began to understand that his homeland is gradually turning into a colony of terrorists, and that’s why he reported lots of interesting information. He said that the forces that are at war with the governmental Syrian army receive arms from the West, which distributes its HQs, consisting of representatives from 15 western countries. Thus, it surprised and confused him that representatives of organizations that are officially recognised as terrorists in the West receive even more weapons than the FSA. He reported that they have in their arsenal American anti-tank TOW missile systems, and their use is taught in a training camp in Qatar. Over the last three years a lot of things changed. The FSA actually doesn’t exist any more. More precisely, it exists only formally, being a cover for arms supplies to terrorists”.

Another change was that now the US began to arm terrorists not with their own weapons, but with ones made in Eastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. And the world learned about this thanks to the same courageous Bulgarian journalist who found in December, 2016, in Aleppo – freshly liberated from Islamists -warehouses with rockets for “Grad” launchers, and also shells for anti-tank weapons and grenade launchers recently made at a Bulgarian munitions factory in the city of Sopot.

After the FAN reported about this to its readers, the scandal became international and the Prosecutor’s office of the Republic of Bulgaria was compelled to begin an investigation. I asked about its results in an interview to Dilyan Gaytandzhiyev: “In the beginning the case was submitted from the main prosecutor’s office in Sofia to the Gorna Oryahovitsa regional prosecutor’s office. Already this proves that there wasn’t going to be an investigation into how Bulgarian weapons got to terrorists, as it is obvious that the regional prosecutor’s office isn’t authorised to conduct such an investigation. The weapons got to ‘Al-Qaeda’ through Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors from Gorna Oryahovitsa checked in the munitions factory for the existence of a contract with Saudi Arabia and the existence of a license for the export of weapons abroad. After this they terminated the investigation with the formulation ‘due to a lack of evidence'”.

Unlike the prosecutor’s office, Dilyan Gaytandzhiyev continued her investigation, and with the help of an information source that she refuses to name, she, in April, 2017, managed to find out that Bulgarian weapons were transported to Saudi Arabia by a ship sailing under the Danish flag “Marianne Danica”. In July, 2017, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva published a sensational article under the name “350 diplomatic flights carry weapons for terrorists” in the “Trud” newspaper, where she worked as a correspondent.

The article revealed a whole network of arms supplies to terrorists in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and also to criminal groups in Africa from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia, which were carried out by planes from the Azerbaijani airline “Silk Way”. The fact that for the flights with weapons it managed to receive diplomatic status in 12 states is unique, i.e. they weren’t checked by customs and the border service. In the article are 49 documents proving this and it was published in both Bulgarian and English.

The truthfulness of the information published in Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s articles is confirmed indirectly by two facts. Firstly, the Bulgarian export of weapons abroad, according to official figures, grew from 125 million dollars in 2014 to 650 million dollars in 2015.

Secondly, neither the Bulgarian munitions factory, the American companies buying Bulgarian weapons, nor the Azerbaijani airline put forward a claim against her and the “Trud” newspaper for slander.

About the story of the last article, Dilyan Gaytandzhiyev said in an interview: “I received the documents published in the article through social networks and the Internet. I was told that they were obtained through hacking the e-mail of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Sofia. I verified their authenticity, and also wrote an inquiry to the Embassy of Azerbaijan, and there they confirmed the fact of email hacking. After that I wrote an article. The other day I was called into the State Agency for National Security and asked to report my sources of information, but I refused to do it, referring to the right granted to me by the law. The State Agency for National Security investigates not how Bulgarian weapons fell into the hands of Islamists, but how there was a leakage of documents proving it.

On the same day I was called into the ‘Trud’ newspaper editorial office and was allowed to sign a notice of the termination of my employment contract. I didn’t even manage to meet the editor-in-chief Petyo Blyskov. It was a complete surprise for me. Several days ago I discussed with him my next business trip to Syria and how we will continue the investigation into the arms supplies to terrorists. Obviously, the newspaper succumbed to the pressure placed on it.

Despite the fact that I am now unemployed, I plan to continue the investigation. In front of my eyes in Syria the heads of a woman with her child were torn off. I saw a great number of deformed children (this can be seen in one of Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s videos). I don’t want Bulgarian weapons to bring death and suffering to innocent people.

In addition, the war in Syria is coming to and end, and Islamists will soon run away to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the probability is great that the channels of weapons deliveries will remain, and in Afghanistan there are Bulgarian troops and it can happen that our weapons will start killing our own soldiers”.

Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s dismissal is the latest episode proving that the persecution of journalists for their professional activity exists in the EU. Here it is necessary to recall Petra László from Hungary and Mateusz Piskorski from Poland. Here, fortunately, it hasn’t reached sentencing and imprisonment. But it is clearly visible that the freedom of speech exists only when this word doesn’t interfere with State policy. Dilyana Gaytandzhieva spoke about this in the interview: “Investigative journalism in Bulgaria is dead. Over the last two years there aren’t any examples of an investigation by journalists into the abuses of State power”.

To my question about her attitude towards Russia, she replied: “For the first time for many years I was proud of our army when I learned that our military personnel during NATO manoeuvers refused to shoot at targets on which Russian symbols were drawn.

I saw your military in Syria, I saw the doctors who were killed in Aleppo. I talked to many Syrians and all of them feel huge gratitude to Russia for what it is doing in their country. Just like 140 years ago, Russia liberated Bulgaria, and now it liberates Syria”.

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