Macedonia Prosecution Still Mulling Charges Against PM

Macedonian PM, Nikola Gruevski | Photo by: gov.mk

Macedonia's opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, have submitted a forensic analysis conducted in Serbia that they say proves that Gruevski's own voice can be heard on a telephone recording in which a man was discussing the sale of the bank.

The prosecution in Macedonia says it is still deciding whether to take this new alleged evidence into account, however.

"We expect to reach a decision within a few days after which we will inform the public," the prosecution told Balkan Insight on Friday.

The prosecution said it was still deliberating over whether to start an investigation against Gruevski, or drop the entire case, which dates back in 2004, as obsolete.

Under Macedonian law, a criminal case may be rendered obsolete after ten years if the law does not prescribe more than ten years in jail for the crime in question.

In the midst of April's general and presidential elections, the SDSM accused Gruevski of taking a bribe of €1.5 million to expedite the sale of Makedonska Banka to a Serbian businessman, Jovica Stefanovic, aka “Gazda Nini”, ["Boss Nini"], in 2004.

Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE party flatly denied the allegations.

The opposition produced documents of financial transactions as well as legal papers from Macedonia’s Central Bank that approved the sale of the bank’s shares.

It also released a lengthy telephone recording on which the opposition claimed that Gruevski's voice could be heard discussing the illegal sale.

Following a lengthy silence from the prosecution, the SDSM on Tuesday submitted the forensic examination of the recording done in Belgrade by an "authorized court expert on the field of information technologies".

"The voice matches Gruevski's... We hope that this...

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