North Macedonia Prosecution Files Charges in “Extortion” Case

North Macedonia's State Prosecution on Thursday laid charges against the country's former head special prosecutor on two grounds, for "taking a reward for illegal influence" and for "misuse in office".

Katica Janeva is the second person to be accused in the high-profile "Extortion" case that has rocked the country since the summer. She is charged with taking a 50,000-euro bribe plus a reward in furniture worth another 5,000 euros from the businessman Orce Kamcev in order to ease his legal plight.

The first accused in the case, the showman-turned-businessman Bojan Jovanovski, aka, Boki 13, is also charged with taking bribes as well as money laundering. The third accused, Jovanovski's partner, Zoran Milevski, is charged with taking a bribe.

Under the charges that the prosecution said that it had sent on Thursday to the Skopje Criminal Court, Jovanovski used his influence with Janeva during the period of November 2018 to April 2019, when she was head of the Special Prosecution, SJO, to get Kamcev out of detention and regain his passport.

Kamcev was in detention at the time as a suspect in an investigation codenamed "Empire", instigated by Janeva's own office, the Special Prosecution.

Milevski had meanwhile been arranging contacts between Jovanovski and Kamcev's wife, and later with Kamcev himself, assuring them of Jovanovski's influence with Janeva.

The charges further state that Kamcev's wife paid the first half million euros, after which Janeva proposed that Kamcev be transferred to house arrest - which the court then accepted.

When the second tranche of money came, for another 1 million euros, Janeva gave consent for Kamcev's passport to be temporarily returned to him. On this occasion, the prosecution states that Janeva...