(SOFIA) - A former road fund official whose attempt to get bribes from an architect helped persuade the European Commission to freeze funding to Bulgaria, was jailed for five years Tuesday.

Ivan Vladimirov was found guilty of having sought 50,000 leva (25,500 euros, 33,100 dollars) in exchange for approving an architect's project, the court heard.

Vladimirov was arrested in January with Lubomir Lilov, another road fund official who oversaw the EU subsidies department, as they were receiving the first instalment of the bribe.

Lilov, who had acted as a middle-man and pleaded guilty, was given a one-year suspended sentence.

The corruption scandal came to light when the architect revealed it in January.

It was one of the reasons cited by the European Commission in Brussels for freezing some 825 million euros (1.03 billion dollars) in farm, road and regional development subsidies to Bulgaria in July.

The Commission announced Tuesday that Bulgaria had lost the right to about 220 million euros in EU funds because of its failure to adequately tackle corruption there.

It is the first time the EU's executive arm had taken such action.

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