The Anti-Corruption Commission initiated charges against ten top former employees of the disgraced Special Prosecutor’s Office. The group, led by former SPO chief Katica Janeva, is accused of failing to report extra earnings in their annual reports.

Janeva is currently charged with gross corruption and abuse of office, after she extorted millions of euros from businessmen she was prosecuting. None of her assistant prosecutors has been charged yet, and they are being given positions in the regular, OJO service of state prosecutors, and in some cases are even allowed to continue working on the cases initiated by Janeva.

Other prosecutors on the list that the Anti-Corruption Commission revealed today are Fatime Fetai, Elizabeta Josifoska, Lile Stefanova, Burim Rustemi, Gavril Bubevski, Stevco Donev, Trajce Pelivanov, Artan Ajro and Ljubomir Lape. They face misdemeanor charges, and could be forced to pay back the money they collected unlawfully.

Janeva took 157.000 EUR in bonuses on top of her monthly salary of 3.500 EUR. Josifoska got 107.000 EUR in bonuses while Stefanova, who was suspected of also trying to extort money from businessmen but was not charged, got 94.000 EUR. Fetai, who along Janeva and Lence Ristoska was one of the three public faces of the institution that was used to install the SDSM party to power and rename and redefine Macedonia, got 87.000 EUR in bonuses.

The interim Government recently sparked outrage when it used its emergency powers, given to it because of the coronavirus epidemic, to order the payment of back pay and bonuses to the SPO prosecutors. It is estimated that the group, led by Janeva, extorted some 20 million EUR from dozens of businessmen who Janeva was prosecuting, or who were threatened by her unlimited power. The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party insists that this systemic racketeering was being perpetrated by the top officials of the now ruling SDSM party, who gave Janeva political cover to extort money.