Outgoing Prime Minister Zoran Zaev dismissed the question from Radio Free Europe of his own personal involvement in the major racketeering scandal revolving around former Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva. Zaev sought to blame the scandal on the opposition and on businessman Jordan Orce Kamcev, who recorded Janeva as she was extorting millions of euros from him, using her power and close ties to the Zaev Government as leverage.
Such as scandal can’t happen without the knowledge of the Prime Minister if the Prime Minister is autocratic and controls all the processes in the country. It probably wouldn’t have surfaced under Nikola Gruevski. But I myself reported the case to the prosecutors as the prosecutor herself, and everybody else, said. And we have a transparent and open procedure and everything is coming to the surface, Zaev said about the case in which his close ally, Katica Janeva, was charged with abusing her office and extorting money from businessmen.
Zaev went on to accuse Kamcev of working together with the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party and giving them donations in the 2016 elections, and threatened to investigate this. “Zoran Zaev reported the case, Zoran Zaev is not under an investigation”, the outgoing Prime Minister added referring to himself in the third person. Meanwhile, state prosecutors are going after journalists who reported on Kamcev’s testimony, where he discusses what Zaev knew about the extortion, when did he know it and how he responded. Zaev insists that he reported the case to prosecutor Vilma Ruskoska, although she could not provide records of such a report or their meeting and Zaev continued to demand that Katica Janeva is appointed as a permanent Special Prosecutor long after he knew about her involvement in high level racketeering.
In the RFE interview, Zaev also addressed his failure to secure the opening of EU accession talks, even after the humiliating name change he put Macedonia through, the overall failur to uphold the rule of law and the economic troubles.
I’m aware of the weaknesses of this Government but of the system as well, as not everything is up to the Government. Still, there is disappointment among the citizens, I’m also disappointed, because the EU did not reach its decision. We hope that they will correct this historic mistake. The citizens were definitely betrayed by the judiciary, but it is not under the control of the executive, Zaev said.
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