SOFIA (Reuters) - A powerful bomb exploded in front of the apartment of a Bulgarian television reporter early on Thursday, smashing windows and walls in a seven-story building but causing no casualties, police said.
The attack came as Bulgaria tries to prove it can crack down on rampant high-level corruption and organized crime to the European Union, which will decide on May 16 whether to let the Balkan state join in 2007 or delay it by a year.
Journalist Vasil Ivanov said he believed the bomb was intended to kill him following a string of investigative stories in which he uncovered a number of acts of fraud, inmate abuse at prisons, and other crimes.
"My family was inside and it's a wonder nobody was injured, because all the walls on the floor are smashed," Ivanov told Nova Television, where he works.
He said he would not stop doing his stories, the latest of which uncovered prisoner abuse at Sofia Central prison, while his station condemned the attack.
"Journalists in Bulgaria feel threatened, because they are doing their job," said Krasimira Krasteva, head of the news department at Nova TV.
Bulgaria has promised Brussels it will jail top-level officials who have made corrupt deals and convict powerful organized crime bosses who diplomats say control large parts of the economy.
Underworld gangs have killed scores of people in a string of bloody shootings, bombings and other assassinations since 2001, but authorities have yet to convict a single suspect for any of the murders.
