Following the shocking testimony by former spy chief Zoran Verusevski, who acknowledged that the tapes the SDSM party used in its power grab that started in 2015 were tampered, the party spokesman insisted today that the so-called “bombs” were legitimate.

Following the arrest of Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva on corruption and extortion charges, Verusevski dealt the second devastating blow to the official narrative developed about the 2015 political crisis when he testified on Monday. In court, Verusevski admitted that the materials were “heavily modified” and insisted to limit his role in providing the tapes and writing up the narrative which SDSM fed to the public.

The claims SDSM leader Zoran Zaev made then is that the VMRO-DPMNE led Government is corrupt and involved in a number of murder cover-ups. Some of these stories collapsed as the full tapes were revealed.

Others, such as Zaev’s promise that he will reveal additional details about the 2012 Good Friday massacre, are now seen as widely overblown.

Faced with this additional blow to the legitimacy of its “crime fighting” credentials, SDSM spokesman Kostadin Kostadinov held a press conference today to claim that the tapes are authentic. He pointed to a forensics analysis performed in Germany, which also doesn’t account for whether the tapes were selectively presented.

The veracity of the tapes has been confirmed multiple times, including with the test in Germany. All citizens, the entire public, had the opportunity to hear the voices of the VMRO-DPMNE officials, the screams and the force being used. The authenticity was also confirmed by people involved in the conversations, Kostadinvo said.

When asked about the u-turn from Verusevski, who was security chief in SDSM during the scandal and is a top adviser to Prime Minister Zaev, Kostadinov replied that he will not comment on active criminal investigations.