Fatime Fetai complains about being forced to do storage duties and insists that her SPO office was not raided

Fatime Fetai, one of the top deputies to disgraced Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva, defended the payment of large bonuses to SPO prosecutors even as the institution is being investigated by its rivals from the OJO service. OJO prosecutors under Vilma Ruskoska raided the SPO yesterday, and seized documents related to the payments Janeva was making.

The institutions are acting very fast to investigate this and it would be good if they acted as quickly in all other cases. The special prosecutors were working for a salary of 1.200 EUR a month which is appropriate for people doing this line of work anywhere in the world, Fetai said as she was going to the courthouse for the latest hearing in the 2012 Good Friday massacre case.

It was reported that Fetai received more than 80.000 EUR in various bonuses on top of her salary. This became the new focus of the investigation led by Ruskoska, as she keeps hitting at Katica Janeva, but is also careful not to indict additional high level politicians from the ruling SDSM party who were reportedly involved in the extortion of millions of euros from businessmen pressured by Janeva.

Fetai insisted that the OJO did not raid the SPO, but was “merely securing the documents they required”. She compared the salaries and bonuses Janeva’s team received to the also scandalous travel expenses collected by members of Parliament – another system of perks which is widely abused.
Fetai also complained that due to the slow motion train wreck that is the SPO nowdays, they lack the necessary staff to continue their work.

Instead of working on our cases we’ve been asked to work the archives or the storage where our case – files are kept, Fetai said.

In case this latest scandal tied to the SPO goes to trial, Fetai said that she is prepared to face the consequences. Previously, VMRO-DPMNE official Antonio Milososki called on the prosecutors to pay back the bonuses they collected illegally, saying that it can serve as a mitigating factor if or when this form of Janeva’s abuse of office gets to trial.