Speaking to the press after the meeting of party leaders today, SDSM leader Zoran Zaev was asked about the leaks of audio tapes that show how Zaev himself manipulated wiretaps, his angry language aimed at voters who don’t support him and how he had control over the ostensibly independent civic organizations funded by US billionaire George Soros.
When asked about some of the allegations, including the fact that he illegally gave wiretaps to a person from the Albanian underworld in Skopje to have them translated and used against DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti, Zaev was unapologetic.
The conversations were translated from Albanian to Macedonian based on a selection I did, and they were translated by SDSM party activists and members. That was done so we could publish materials about DUI and they were published, Zaev said, before again insisting that he gave all the wiretaps that were given to him by rogue intelligence officers to the Special Prosecutor.
The Albanian language tapes were given to Zahir Bekiri – Caus, a small time fraudster and criminal from Skopje, who Zaev now declares an SDSM party member, and who was also producing forged documents that SDSM tried using to plant fake stories against VMRO-DPMNE, such as fake identity documents and Bulgarian passports meant to make it look that VMRO officials have dual citizenship.
Under the special law passed during the 2015 political crisis, the tapes were supposed to be given only to Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva, who herself was also a de-facto SDSM party loyalist and is now standing trial for abusing the tapes and her unchecked power to extort money from businessmen. But the fact that the tapes were given to people like Caus raised additional concerns that the tapes are used for blackmail not only by Zaev but by other criminals as well.
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