Macedonia Prosecution Faces Deadline to Press Charges

With a June 30 deadline to press charges - which is unlikely to be prolonged by Macedonia's parliament - the special prosecution, SJO - tasked with probing high-level crime - says it will try to wrap up as manyinvestigations as it can by then.

"Various investigations are nearing their conclusion ... There is a possibility that we may press more charges before the end of this month, but that remains to be seen," a senior source in the SJO told BRN under condition of anonymity.

Unofficially, one of the investigations that the SJO is working on is the latest case, in which former Prime Minister and VMRO DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski, along with ten other top party officials, are suspected of illegally financing the party through money laundering.

The investigation launched in May was codenamed "Talir".

"The SJO is working intensively on the 'Talir' case... suspects and witnesses are being summoned in the SJO for statements. We hope we will be able to wrap up this investigation soon and decide what to do next based on the evidence we gathered," the source told BIRN.

Formed in autumn 2015 as part of an EU-sponsored crisis agreement, the SJO has launched over 120 pre-investigative procedures, more than 20 investigations and filed charges in three cases. Almost all of them concern officials from the former ruling VMRO DPMNE party, which took power in 2006 and last month went into opposition.

The SJO effectively begun work that December after the then opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, handed over wiretapped materials that they said contained proof of many wrongdoings by officials.

Although the SJO has a five-year mandate, the original agreement gave it 18 months following receipt of the wiretaps to raise...