Chief state prosecutors Ljubomir Joveski and Vilma Ruskoska detailed their charges against Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13 today, accusing the cross dressing showman and recent TV mogul of receiving a 1.5 million EUR from a yet unnamed businessman to get a yet unnamed prosecutor to be more lenient in the charges against him.
Chief public prosecutor Joveski confirmed that Boki 13 and businessman Zoran Mileski – Zoki Kicheec were arrested today on allegations of racketeering. Accourding to the allegations, Boki 13 helped a high profile suspect in a criminal investigation to receive lenient treatment, and received 1.5 million EUR in exchange, while expecting to receive five millions more.
The suspects asked for a total of eight million EUR. A sum of 1.5 million EUR was paid in several installments. In order to secure their further cooperation, the businessman agreed to pay additional five million EUR as a reward. If the charges against the businessman were not dropped as a result of their actions, the agreed to still pay five million EUR to get leniency in the charges, but the 1.5 million EUR would be counted toward that sum. Once the two suspects began to doubt the confidentiality of their meetings with the businessman and that their criminal act is about to be uncovered, they failed to meet with him, said Joveski, who referred to the businessman who was being blackmailed by Boki 13 and Zoki Kicheec as a “witness”.
Joveski and Ruskoska, who are widely seen as close to the ruling SDSM party, said that the charges against Boki 13 and Kicheec are about “illegally receiving awards”. Ruskoska and Joveski did not disclose the person who Boki 13 was allegedly taking money from, or the prosecutor they were allegedly working with. The news of Boki 13’s arrest was quickly followed by the resignation of Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva. Boki’s 1TV station was seen as loudly supportive of Janeva and Janeva’s son Lazar Janev works for 1TV.
Joveski refused to comment on Janeva’s resignation, even as the journalist who pushed the story about Boki 13’s alleged racketeering claimed that the two events are linked.
That is a personal move and I will not comment, Joveski said asked about the other big news of the day – Janeva’s resignation. “We call on all others who have been exposed to such pressure to step forward”, Ruskoska added.
Since the 2015 political crisis in Macedonia and the installation of Zoran Zaev as Prime Minister in 2017, a number of politicians from the VMRO-DPMNE party as well as business people were the targets of politically driven charges. Few of the businessmen are seen as having the amount of money Joveski and Ruskoska were talking about today, but the arrest quickly caused speculations across the country about the identity of the businessman and, of course, the prosecutor involved.
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