Probe oredered into police violence in Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Prosecutor-General Ivan Tatarchev has ordered the country's courts to investigate the beating of anti-government protestors in Sofia exactly one year ago 10th January 1997.

Police were sent in to break up a crowd that had besieged the Bulgarian parliament building during a rally against the Socialist Party government, which resigned last February.

The Bulgarian News Agency, BTA, said the investigation would find out whether Socialist minsters had broken the law.

BTA quotes a recently declassified transcript of a cabinet meeting as saying that, the Socialist Prime Minister, Zhan Videnov, had taken responsibility for the police actions.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service