Macedonia Special Prosecution 'Seriously Probing' Top Officials

With 30 cases under investigation and 80 suspects being probed for crimes ranging from election-rigging to large-scale bribery and tax evasion, the Special Prosecution is fulfilling its assigned task of digging into alleged criminal activity by high-ranking state officials, observers told BIRN.

The Special Prosecution filed a 13-page report last week to parliament and the prosecutor's council with the first comprehensive data on the cases and suspects it has started to investigate.

Chief Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva also announced that the public can expect the first criminal charges very soon.

Political analyst Andreja Stojkovski from the NGO Macedonian Centre for European Training said that the Special Prosecution has shown itself "up to the task".

"The seriousness is demonstrated through the criminal offences that are being investigated. A rough estimate of mine shows that the 80 suspects might get a total of 406 years in jail, if all the envisaged punishments are seen cumulatively," Stojkovski said.

Stojkovski insisted that all obstructions to the work of the Special Prosecution must stop, referring complaints from Janeva in the report that the regular prosecution office led by Marko Zvrlevski is stalling the transfer of several cases that she has requested from him and that she has legal right to take over.

Janeva said in the report that even if the regular prosecution continues to refuse cooperation, the Special Prosecution will launch the same cases on its own, based on the thousands of tapes and transcripts of illegally-recorded, incriminating wiretapped conversations of state officials that the opposition Social Democrats handed to them at the start of the year.

Political analyst Albert Musliu...