Macedonia Court Orders Businessman's Arrest Over Tender Fix

A court in Skopje has ordered big businessman and media baron Sead Kocan - who is known for close ties to former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski - to be arrested and put in detention for 30 days on suspicion of fixing a coal tender.

The Special Prosecution, SJO, earlier named him in a case codenamed "Trust" that the SJO - established to probe high-level crime and corruption - opened last month.

Kocan's defence lawyer, Nikola Dodevski, on Friday said that he would remain at liberty until they received the court's decision.

"Until we get such a decision, Sead Kocan is a free man and can regularly carry out his activities," Dodevski said.

The court ordered Kocan's arrest on the proposition of the SJO, accepting its explanation that if left free, the businessman could "escape, influence witnesses or destroy evidence" in the case.

Kocan's lawyer earlier dismissed the charges, saying his client is innocent.

Along with three other businessmen, he is suspected of falsifying documents in 2011 to win a 17-million-euros tender to extract coal from the Suvodol mine near the town of Bitola for the state power company ELEM. The tender was awarded to the consortium he belonged to in 2012.

The SJO sought detention for Kocan, owner of the company Transmet and the national TV station NOVA, and for Vasilije Avirovic, a representative for Sileks Nemetali company.

The Transmet and Sileks companies were both part of the consortium that won the tender for extraction of coal.

A third suspect in the case, Safet Vatic, headed VATO, a company that was also part of the same consortium.

They are suspected of presenting false data about the capacity of a slag crusher, needed for the extraction of coal, special...