Macedonia Prosecutors Launch Four New Graft Probes

The Special Prosecution, SJO, which is tasked with probing high-level wrongdoing in Macedonia, launched the four new investigations at a press conference on Thursday.

In the cases that raised most public interest, codenamed "Total" and "Tifani", the SJO suspects two pro-government TV news presenters, Dragan Pavlovic and  Ivona Talevska, of tax evasion through companies they own or once managed.

In the first case, Pavlovic, who is the editor-in-chief at the national Sitel TV, is suspected of evading paying a total of 120,000 euros in taxes for the marketing firms Total Marketing, Total Media Centar and Mediamaks, of which he is either the current or former manager.

The SJO said that in addition to this, Pavlovic is under suspicion of evading a further 60,000 euros in personal taxes.

In the second case, Talevska, the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Vecer is suspected of evading taxes amounting to 37,000 euros for the companies Smart Centar and Smart Group, which she runs or once ran.

Taleska, as manager of these firms, is additionally suspected of evading paying personal taxes of over 16,000 euros.

The prosecution believes that for several years, the two suspects have used company funds for personal purchases of luxury goods like expensive watches, furniture and other personal items, falsely declaring them as company expenses which are subject to tax allowances.

Some of the companies are no longer active.

BIRN tried contacting Pavlovic and Talevska for comment. Pavlovic was not available while Talevska asked for the questions to be sent in a written form, via SMS, but failed to reply.

The "Trista" ("300") and "Tabla" ("Blackboard") cases
 
In the third case...