What is happening with the criminal complaint filed by the head of the High Public Prosecutor’s Office, Mustafa Hajrulahi, against the two prosecutors Fatime Fetai and Sasho Rajchev in May 2023? More than a year after the filing of the criminal complaint for abuse of official position and authority and abuse of personal data, there is still no charge against the two prosecutors.

In May 2023, Hajrulahi submitted a notification in the form of a criminal complaint to the Public Prosecutor, Ljubomir Joveski at the time, with the aim of determining another PPO outside the jurisdiction of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office. Since then, there has been silence about the criminal charges filed in the Public Prosecutor’s Office during the time when Joveski was the state prosecutor. According to “Republika,” until December 2023, or until Joveski’s departure, these criminal charges remained in a drawer in JORM and were not distributed to any Prosecutor’s Office. Sources say it was Joveski himself who kept the criminal charges in a drawer. In December, just before Joveski’s departure from office, a decision was made that the Bitola Public Prosecutor’s Office should handle this case. In January of this year, the criminal charges arrived at the Bitola prosecutor’s office. However, the Bitola prosecutor’s office, by accident or not, has not acted on the criminal charges against Fetai and Rajchev. And there, for months, there has been no outcome of the procedure.

For a year and a half, the prosecutors have been checking the allegations against their colleagues, and there has been no decision after this long period. All previous activities related to these proceedings, both in the State Public Prosecutor’s Office, then headed by Joveski, and in the Bitola Public Prosecutor’s Office, where Olivera Nechakovska is the head, seem to favor the statute of limitations for the crime for which Fetai and Rajchev are charged. Are officials trying to cover up the reports and prevent any charges or court proceedings against the prosecutors? Has Joveski’s successor, Ljupco Kocevski, taken an interest in what is happening with the criminal cases against his colleagues? This situation speaks to the promptness and efficiency of the prosecution system in the country. The assessment of the independence, promptness, and efficiency of both the prosecutor’s office and the judiciary is at the lowest possible level, which is noted in every report by all relevant European institutions. Public trust is barely 2 percent, which is effectively zero.

The demands for accountability from Fetai and Rajchev came after Marjan Stamenkovski from DokazM said that he cooperated with prosecutor Rajchev and another prosecutor. Regarding Rajchev, he indicated that he cooperated with him on some of the cases for which he is being tried, that is, he sent him information. The owner of the Dokaz-M portal has already been convicted of two crimes, piracy and blackmail. In contrast, there is still no decision on the criminal complaint, much less the initiation of proceedings against, as Stamenkovski claims, his associates Fetai and Rajchev.

What is happening with the criminal charges against the two prosecutors? Is someone trying to save them by letting the charges become obsolete? We spoke with Olivera Nechakovska, head of the Bitola prosecutor’s office. After a short telephone conversation, we sent questions to the email address of the Prosecutor’s Office, but instead of answering them, as agreed with Nechakovska, we were forwarded to the address of the press service of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Macedonia. From there, we received a short answer that did not contain the essence of what we were looking for, but a general answer, even to the questions that refer directly to the Bitola prosecutor.

We asked Nechakovska:
1. Has the criminal report filed by the head of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office, Mustafa Hajrulahi, against Fatime Fetai and Sasho Rajchev been submitted to the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office Bitola, and when?
2. If it is with you, what is the reason it was transferred to the PPO Bitola?
3. Is it being acted upon? Has it been reassigned to a prosecutor, and how far along is the procedure?
4. With the latest amendments to the criminal law, the crime of abuse of official position expires faster. Will OJO Bitola allow this subject to become obsolete?
5. Question for prosecutor Olivera Nechakovska – Is there any external influence and direct pressure on you to make the criminal report obsolete and not act on it?

Instead of Nechakovska, we received a response from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, confirming that the Criminal Complaint against Fetai and Rajchev was submitted to the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bitola in January of this year. According to their claim, it is being acted upon to verify the allegations.

The application was submitted to the competent authority of the Bitola Public Prosecutor’s Office after an exemption decision was made to avoid circumstances that would cause possible doubts about the impartiality of decision-making, given that both the petitioner and the reported are senior prosecutors in the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office Skopje, whose area includes the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office Skopje.

What is the reason the State Public Prosecutor’s Office needed seven months to transfer the case to Bitola? What happened to the case during those months? What is happening with the criminal procedure these seven months after it was received in the Bitola prosecutor’s office? We did not receive a concrete answer from Nechakovska. We received a response from the press service of the Public Prosecutor’s Office that “it is being acted upon to verify the allegations.”

There is no concrete answer to whether the PJSC Bitola will allow this case to expire. With the last amendments to the criminal code in September 2023, proposed by the then-current government led by SDSM and DUI, the prison sentence for abuse of official position was reduced, opening the possibility for these offenses to become obsolete earlier.

Nechakovska believed that the question addressed specifically to her – Is there any external influence and direct pressure on you to make the criminal complaint expire and not be acted upon? – is not a question she should answer. Although it is emphasized in the question that this refers specifically to pressure on her as the head of the Bitola prosecutor’s office, we did not receive an answer from Nechakovska. Instead, we received a response from the press service of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Macedonia:

The Public Prosecutor’s Office does not succumb to any pressure and acts only in accordance with the law.

But is there any pressure on Nechakovska? There is no answer to this question. According to information from Republika, direct pressure is being exerted on Nechakovska to keep the criminal complaint against Fatime Fetai and Sasho Rajchev in the drawer so that the crime becomes obsolete. Our sources point out that people from circles close to SDSM DUI, as well as to prosecutor Joveski, are advocating by putting pressure on Nechakovska to obtain a statute of limitations on the crime. Nechakovska neither confirmed nor denied this information. She simply kept silent despite our efforts to get her to answer the questions that refer to the Bitola prosecutor’s office and to her personally. Instead of an answer, she made sure to forward the questions to the press office of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Macedonia.

Such cases are the reason for citizens’ mistrust in the justice system and poor grades from the EU. In April of this year, the OSCE mission highlighted the situation in the judiciary, pointing out extremely politicized decisions with insufficient transparency and quality as a problem. The Macedonian judiciary should restore the trust of the citizens, but with such actions, we are far from achieving this goal.

“Republika” will continue to follow this case, which is in the public interest, and will report on all new developments surrounding the filed criminal complaint against the two prosecutors, Fatime Fetai and Sasho Rajchev.