Zaev Testifies in North Macedonia Wiretapping Trial

North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev appeared before the Skopje Criminal Court on Thursday as a witness in the ongoing case "Target-Fortress", in which former top interior ministry and secret police officials are charged with masterminding and carrying out a massive illegal wiretapping operation.

Zaev said he was first informed about what was going on in June 2013, soon after being elected head of the then opposition Social Democratic Party, SDSM.

He said the head of the party's security committee, a former head of the secret police, Zoran Verushevski, had informed him of the details.

"Verushevski informed me about the complete scope … I was informed that the party possessed documents and materials linked to an illegal following of communications," he said.

Zaev told the court that the materials had been in written form and in audio files.

He said that, at that time, he did not personally know the two secret police whistle-blowers who had been handing the materials to his party, Zvonko Kostovski and Gjorgi Lazarevski.

He said that since then, these materials, thousands of them, had been kept on the party's premises, under strict guard, with only him and Verushevski having access to them.

"The only thing I was interested in was whether these documents were coming from state institutions or from abroad," Zaev said.

He added that after taking a look at them, he was convinced that they originated in state institutions, and that the surveillance was illegal and massive in scale, as more than 20,000 people had been wiretapped.

Zaev said that from what he was able to see and hear, the most numerous wiretapped conversations were of him and of his predecessor at the helm of the SDSM, Branko Crvenkovski, as well...