The Council of public prosecutors unanimously decided this evening to remove Katica Janeva from her position as Special Prosecutor. The move comes after the Parliament voter overwhelmingly to do the same, after Janeva was charged with extorting money from businessmen she was prosecuting.

We decided to dismiss Janeva from the position of Special Prosecutor because of her incompetent, unlawful and untrustworthy actions, said Aco Kolevski, President of the Council of public prosecutors.

Kolevski announced that on Monday the Council will conclude that the rest of the prosecutors working for Janeva are also having their mandates terminated, given that the law provides that their mandate can’t surpass that of the chief Special Prosecutor. The Council will vote on whether to order them to return to the OJO offices from which they were recruited to join Janeva.

As for the SPO office, Kolevski said that the Parliament can still send a proposal to the Council that a new Special Prosecutor is named, and therefore keep the SPO active. This is unlikely to happen as the main parties could not reach agreement on nominating a new Special Prosecutor and have concluded that the SPO is not salvageable.

Where the parties differ is whether a new unit of prosecutors tasked with investigating high level crimes should be set up. The Government is now moving in the direction of having its loyal prosecutors in the OJO service take over the SPO case files, while preventing the creation of a new unit which would be led by a prosecutor proposed by the opposition and therefore would seriously investigate the scandal that is developing around Janeva.