Trial over “Racketeering” Case officially Started

Tuesday saw the start of the trial over the “Racketeering” case, in which defendants Bojan Jovanovski, Zoran Mileski-Kiceec and former Head of the Special Public Prosecution (SPO) Katica Janeva are charged with extortion, money laundering and abuse of official position. The hearing started with reading of the bill of indictment against the defendants, but was soon interrupted after the defendant Bojan Jovanovski said he was ill and sought medical assistance. Doctors intervened, and Doctor Mihail TOlev from the medical team said that Jovanovski’s condition should not prevent him to sit through the hearing. “The first defendant (Jovanovski) from November 2018 till April 2019 used his supposed influence over the second defendant (Janeva) to convince her to conduct actions against her authorisations in favour of a suspect (businessman Orce Kamcev) in the “Empire” case processed by SPO. The third suspect (Kiceec) was arranging the meetings between the first suspect and the spouse of the “Empire” suspect, and later the suspect themself. The defendants were first paid 500,000 for their illegal service, after which Janeva requested the Appeal Court in Skopje to determine a house arrest measure for Kamcev, which the court accepted. After all three defendants were paid additional one million euros, Janeva sent a written agreement to the Criminal Court to return to Kamcev his passport. For these services, Janeva was presented with furniture in worth of 296,040 denars and 50,000 euros in cash, while Jovanovski and Kiceec were paid 1.5 million euros,” writes the bill of indictment. Jovanovski and Janeva said that they understand the charges filed against them, but that they do not feel guilty, whereas the other defendant, the businessman Mileski said he is guilty.