Branko Geroski, the journalist who performed the initial media coverage in the building up of a case against Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13, accused a powerful and “fabled” prosecutor of being the mastermind in the racketeering case. In his latest comment posted this evening, Geroski continues to avoid using actual names of the culprits, but a number of media outlets already named the prosecutor that is the focus of the investigation as Katica Janeva, the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, who resigned today as Boki 13 was being arrested.
Boki 13 and an accomplice are charged with extorting 1.5 million EUR from a powerful businessman, widely reported to be Jordan Orce Kamcev, one of the richest Macedonians. Kamcev was the subject of an investigation by Katica Janeva, who accused him of money laundering and tax evasion to the tune of 11 and 6 million EUR, respectively.
According to the charges revealed today, Kamcev was pressured by Boki 13 to pay him eight million EUR (later negotiated down to 5 million) in exchange for Boki’s help to get the prosecutor to drop or greatly reduce the charges against Kamcev.
The racketeers are friends with a well known, popular, publicly lauded prosecutor, who was expected to restore justice in Macedonia. My sources tell me that the prosecutor was in fact the mastermind of the operation, but that remains to be seen, Geroski writes, adding that another prosecutor from the same office was involved in the case, as well as important ruling party officials.
Geroski now claims that a foreign country got involved, after being informed that the businessman is being racketeered for nearly two years, and helped him collect the evidence to turn the tables on Boki 13 and the prosecutor. “This friendly country also provided a personal security detail for the victim turned witness”, Geroski adds.
This victim – witness is only one of the many who faced similar extortion. Huge sums of money were demanded from them, as participation in various “projects” and “business deals”, and the reward was meant to be that this all-mighty prosecutor (whose position in the judiciary is currently unresolved) will not initiate charges against the businessmen. I call on the businessmen who were targeted to step up and help put an end to this evil, and if not, I will personally describe them in these “fictitious tales” I write, Geroski added. Prosecutors Ljubomir Joveski and Vilma Ruskoska, who explained the charges against Boki 13 at a press conference today, sent out a similar call to businessmen who were blackmailed by Boki 13 to speak up. Geroski includes a warning to those who were “donating” money to Boki 13 that, if they don’t speak out, they could be charged with offering bribes.
According to Geroski, the bribes didn’t help the businessman win a reprieve – Kamcev and the others charged in Janeva’s case nicknamed “Empire” were released from detention based on an order of the Supreme Court, not a deliberate move by the Special Prosecutor to undermine her own case, but never the less, Geroski repeats that “the popular prosecutor is the mastermind”, and bases his reporting on meetings with the businessman.
My only goal is to repair the damage that was caused to me with this staged criminal case and the negative consequences for my personal reputation and my business. I was prepared to speak about this before, but I needed to document the extortion with incontrovertible evidence first, which I did, and to also persuade the public in the actual depravity of these blackmailers and the prosecutor, who was their mentor, Geroski cites the “victim – witness” businessman.
Katica Janeva was appointed Special Prosecutor in 2015, as a result of the wiretapping scandal in which the SDSM party published recorded conversations of top officials of the VMRO-DPMNE led Government. These conversations, with important details often edited out for the sake of political convenience, were used to spark violent protests against the Nikola Gruevski Government, while Janeva filed case after case against top VMRO-DPMNE officials, based on the edited wiretaps. This eventually helped Zoran Zaev and his SDSM party to take over power, giving Janeva and other politically connected prosecutors free rein to go after the now opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, but a number of businessmen as well. All the while Janeva was considered the darling of the diplomatic corps in Macedonia and of several foreign media outlets who followed the political crisis in the country.
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