Macedonia Prosecutor's Report Likely to Lead to Indictments

As the SJO prepares on Thursday to file its second half-year report to parliament and the prosecutor's council, legal experts say the presidential pardon of politicians in April - retracted in June - explains why there have been no indictments of corrupt officials so far.

"Had it not been for the pardon, we would have seen concrete results from the SJO's work, but I expect the first indictments to follow soon," former prosecutor Jovan Trpenovski said.

In April, President Gjorge Ivanov abruptly pardoned 56 politicians and their associates from potential crime investigations - effectively undermining the work of the Prosecution. Following a wave of protests at home and condemnation from the EU and US, he retracted all the pardons in June.

Voislav Stojanovski, a legal expert at the Macedonian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, said the SJO has gained the trust of the people like no other Macedonian institution, and also thinks it is high time for the first indictments.

"The SJO has raised the alarm over the rule of law in Macedonia. We have an institution with huge popular support, which 63 per cent of the citizens have expressed trust in, which is not the case with any other state institution," Stojanovski said.

He expects the report to inform the public that, one full year into its existence, the SJO has finally obtained most of the preconditions it needs for its work.

"I also expect to find out how many new suspects there are. I estimate that we will have over 100 of them," Stojanovski said.

So far, the SJO, which was formed as a result of the internationally brokered crisis agreement reached last summer, has officially launched six investigations, but many more cases are in the pre-investigation...