From the Sutka prison, disgraced Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva issued an order to return all the cases her department is working on to the OJO office of public prosecutors. The news broke today, and PressingTV reports that Janeva gave her assistants three days to hand over their files to Public Prosecutor Ljubomir Joveski.

If implemented, this move would de facto mean that the Special Prosecutor’s Office is shutting down. The SPO office was set up in 2015, and initially it insisted to get as many cases worked on by OJO as it could, as its head Katica Janeva had the full support of the SDSM party, while OJO was seen as under the control of the VMRO-DPMNE party. By now, SDSM has thoroughly replaced the top OJO brass, and appointed its loyalists Joveski and Vilma Ruskoska to run the larger office of state prosecutors, and giving Janeva’s cases to them would ensure that the SDSM led Government maintains political control over them.

Meanwhile, talks are on going between SDSM and VMRO over the creation of a new, permanent office that would investigate high crimes by Government officials, modeled after the SPO but under a different management after Janeva was herself charged by OJO and detained for abuse of office and corruption.

Janeva is about to be dismissed by Parliament, and even if the Parliament votes against, her mandate expires on September 15th. The cases her office is working on are largely aimed against high level officials of the now opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, as well as a number of businessmen she was allegedly shaking down.