In Macedonia, Chief Prosecutor of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Katica Janeva announced that 94 persons will be investigated in relation to the wiretapping scandal that brought down the Gruevski government in late 2015.
The Special Prosecutor raised accusations of abuse of office, manipulation of property, illegal party financing, and the illegal destruction of wiretapping devices against many former high officials.
Although the officials are not named in the announcement, Macedonian media report that former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, the former ministers of Transport, Interior Affairs, and Culture, and the former director of the Secret Services, as well as dozens of former secretaries-general of the Gruevski government are part of the 94 officials.
The Special Prosecution was created in 2015 through the mediation of the EU, and aims to hold the officials that were involved in the wide-ranging wire tapping scandal accountable. The scandal caused a two-year political crisis in the country and led to the downfall of Gruevski’s government.
Politicians, government officials, activists, journalists, and judges were among those that were targeted by the wire tapping activities of Gruevski.
The scandal eventually led to early elections in December 2016, which were won by Gruevski VMRO-DPMNE, although he was unable to form a government. Just a few weeks ago, former opposition leader Zoran Zaev of the SDSM managed to form a government together with the Albanian minority parties.
Gruevski, who has been prime minister from 2006 to 2016, has called the accusations a “classical political persecution,” and said that they were unfounded. The former prime minister accused the Special Prosecutor of being a tool in the hand of the new prime minister, Zaev:
What is happening right now is a political process and not a process of justice. The Special Prosecutor has for a long time lost her impartiality and the trust in her work has become an instrument for political aims. The Special Prosecutor is not a prosecutor but the office of the SDSM.
