Zaev testifies in Target-Fortress case

In the capacity of witness in the Target-Fortress case on Thursday, PM and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev said that former Security and Counter-Intelligence Administration head Zoran Verusevski, who is now among the PM’s advisers, had informed him that SDSM had documents and materials at its disposal from illegal interception of communications. According to Zaev, he first found about the materials when he was elected SDSM leader in June 2013. The documents and materials were in a written and audio form, the PM added. As he explained, in the period when he found about the materials, he didn’t know Security and Counter-Intelligence Administration employees Zvonko Kostovski and Gjorgji Lazarevski. The PM said he was interested in where the materials had come from, that is, whether from state institutions or outside. From the presentation of the documents, he saw they were from state institutions and from them, he found there was mass interception. According to the PM, the opposition was the most frequent target, followed by journalists, experts, NGOs. However, several phone numbers from then-representatives of the Government were targeted as well. The PM said that Branko Crvenkovski, former SDSM leader, had been the most frequent target out of all party members, followed by him. It’s about thousands of conversations and texts. The wire-tapped materials were specially kept. Only Zaev and Versuevski had access to them. From what SDSM has at its disposal, the wire-tapping activities concern the period from 2008 to 2014. “That would be done at the Interior Ministry and the Security and Counter-Intelligence Administration. First, the materials would be sent to then-PM Nikola Gruevski. I had four meetings with Gruevski. At those meetings, Gruevski asked for part of the materials, but I didn’t give them to him,” Zaev said. According to the PM, former Security and Counter-Intelligence Administration head Saso Mijalkov is to blame for the wire-tapping, but Gruevski is responsible, too. Mijalkov’s defence didn’t have questions. Only former Interior Gordana Jankuloska asked whether it was true that there was discontinuity in the submitting of the materials to SDSM. The PM said that it was the case, adding that there had been days when the party hadn’t received conversations. The PM doesn’t consider it to be true that Verusevski, with his testimony, tried to save Mijalkov from blame. Asked whether the conversations published by El Cheka were known to him, Zaev said he couldn’t confirm whether they were in his party’s possession because he didn’tunderstand Albanian. At that time, he added, the Prosecutor’s Office, instead of investigating the wire-tapping, put itself in the function of politics, led by Gruevski, by launching the Coup case.