English
Prosecutors who are being snubbed by chief prosecutor Ljupco Kocevski are warning that he’s trying to cover up a major scandal involving persistent extortion and racketeering by members of the disgraced SPO unit.
Mustafa Hajrullahi, an outspoken critic of Kocevski, is suspended and facing allegations of harassment by colleagues, which he says are orchestrated by Kocevski to remove him from his position and to shut him up.
Why is this being done to me is clear – a few days ago, in a podcast, I revealed that former SPO prosecutors, Lile Stefanova and Burim Rustemi, are facing an investigation by the Interior Ministry with the same charges that were the focus of the original Racket scandal. They now want to redirect public attention from this scandal toward my suspension, Hajrullahi said.
In the original scandal, members of the SPO team led by Katica Janeva were found to have extorted money from businessmen they were prosecuting at the height of their power, following the Colored Revolution, when the SPO unit was declared to be the height of integrity and accountability in the judiciary. Only Katica Janeva was sentenced in the scandal, while her colleagues remained in positions in the prosecution. Now, several of them are suspected of extorting money from a businessman who was targetted by Janeva in her original round of investigations.
Another prosecutor, Jovan Cvetanovski, who was investigating allegations of corruption and abuse of office in the SPO, is also suspended and facing similar disciplinary procedures initiated by Kocevski.
