Opinion ID: 626808
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Medical Certificates

Text: Narensky’s Report contains ample information on which the BIA’s conclusion that Petitioner’s purported medical certificates are fraudulent is appropriately based. The concerns we expressed in Alexandrov I about the investigator and his investigation no longer give us pause. We know that Narensky himself was the primary investigator, accompanied to both hospitals by the FSNI, who served as an interpreter. We know the specific representatives with whom Narensky spoke at each hospital and the reasons behind each individual’s conclusion that Petitioner’s medical certificates were fraudulent. At Lom Hospital, for example, we know that Narensky spoke with hospital director Dr. Plamen Tzekov. Dr. Tzekov, who had served as Director at Lom since 1991, provided three separate reasons why the Lom certificates were inauthentic. First, neither doctor listed on the certificates had been employed by the Lom Hospital. Second, while both listed physicians were orthopedic surgeons, the hospital had yet to hire its first orthopedic surgeon by the year in which the certificate was supposedly issued. Finally, the stamp used on Petitioner’s certificates differed in wording from the stamp the hospital actually used on its documents. Narensky testified that Dr. Tzekov showed him the real stamp used by Lom Hospital and that he was able to observe the difference between the two firsthand. 10 Narensky provided similar details regarding his trip to Montana Hospital. There, too, we know that Narensky spoke with the Hospital Director. The director, Dr. Magarita Nitzov, had supervised the hospital since 1996. Like Dr. Tzekov, Dr. Nitzov told Narensky that the physician listed on Petitioner’s medical certificate never worked at her hospital. Also similar to Dr. Tzekov, Dr. Nitzov informed Narensky that she identified Petitioner’s document as a forgery because it had been marked with a stamp for a hospital in Sofia, Bulgaria, and not the stamp used by the Montana Hospital. Finally, Dr. Nitzov told Narensky that the very name of the hospital was incorrectly listed on the certificate.