Trial Starts for Macedonia's Wiretapping Scandal

According to the Special Prosecution, SJO, the police officers standing trial attempted to cover-up their department's involvement in illegally listening in on thousands of conversations between politicians, activists, journalists and their associates.

"The goal of the destruction of official documentation was to destroy the records of the unlawful wiretapping" the SJO said in statement when the charges were filed in September.

In an official statement Skopje's Criminal Court said only that the judge had "formed a case and set a session for November 28."

The charges against the officers follow a wide-reaching SJO investigation codenamed 'Fortress', which found that secret police officials had been involved not only in destroying documentation, but also destroying the surveillance equipment used to eavesdrop on people.

As part of a separate investigation, codenamed 'Target', the SJO has said it is looking into whether ten current or former employees of the secret police surveyed almost 6,000 telephone numbers between 2008 and 2015 with obtaining a court order as is required by law.

The current trial and SJO's investigations aim to answer a question at the heart of the Macedonia's prolonged political crisis: Who is responsible for the mass illegal wiretapping operation that has shaken the country?

Macedonia's largest opposition party, the Social Democrats, claim that the former Prime Minister and head of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party, Nikola Gruevski, masterminded the wiretapping scheme together with his cousin Saso Mijalkov, the former secret police chief.

In contrast Gruevski has insisted that the covertly recorded tapes —which were released by the Social Democrats in 2015 — are part of a plot to...