Italian paper La Verita, which published some of the crucial pieces of information about the major racketeering scandal in Macedonia, reports on the visible turning of President Stevo Pendarovski away from embattled Prime Minister Zoran Zaev. Pendarovski took the initiative on Friday, as the outcome of the European Council became clear, to call for a meeting of party leaders, which eventually resulted in the acceptance of the opposition request for early elections.

Zaev tried to trap the opposition, by pushing for elections in December, denying it the control of the electoral process… But, in light of the events, President Stevo Pendarovski, during the meeting of party leaders in his residence, did not favor his ex collaborator Zaev. Starting today, Zaev is an outgoing Prime Minister. His Government formally ends in January, but the election campaign is on-going. With a move of a statesman, Pendarovski at least temporarily reasserted the rule of law. He gave a new chance to the Macedonian citizens to have their say and promoted himself into the leader of a remodeled social-democratic party, post Zaev and after his presidential term. The international community can draw breath again, writes La Verita journalist Laris Gaiser, who published the video tapes revealing the extortion of businessman Jordan Orce Kamcev, the direct involvement of Katica Janeva in the racketeering and also the involvement of Zoran Zaev and Radmila Sekerinska with the blackmailers.

The latest reports from La Verita, allegedly based on a testimony from one of the prosecutors who were investigating the Racket scandal, reveal that Zaev and his loyal prosecutor Vilma Ruskoska personally intervened to unfreeze more than 700.000 EUR that were paid to the extortion group led by Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13.

The prosecutors denied the report, but were visibly shaken, given how quickly earlier reports by La Verita were confirmed. Gaiser notes that the denials actually prove that Ruskoska was in a position to unfreeze the money, and was promoted after the fact, while nobody is denying the allegation of Zaev’s personal involvement.

Our article and the denials prove that at the time Vilma Ruskoska, who was allegedly ordered by Zaev to unfreeze a suspicious money transfer of 750.000 EUR in favor of Boki 13, was a deputy prosecutor and the payment was frozen for weeks. The nervous denials by the prosecutors actually prove the facts we published but they avoid to answer how they conducted the investigation in this obviously illegal payment, unacceptable under any banking regulation. The denials raise additional suspicion that Ruskoska was advanced in her career owing to the fact that she is a loyal subordinate of Zoran Zaev. And besides, nobody is denying the fact that Zoran Zaev personally ordered the money to be unfrozen, Gaiser writes.