Following a break of half an hour, the talks between Zoran Zaev and Hristijan Mickoski resumed, despite being after midnight.

According to unofficial reports, Zaev’s side insists that Vilma Ruskoska, a prosecutor seen as loyal to the Government, is installed as the new head of the disgraced Special Prosecutor’s Office. This proposal, which Zaev publicly made in the past, was rejected by VMRO-DPMNE given Ruskoska’s leading role in the persecution of opposition activists. As head of the organized crime unit in the OJO/PPO office of state prosecutors, Ruskoska, botched the investigation into Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva, taking months to interrogate her, allowing her to conceal evidence and had to be publicly pressured into investigating the involvement of top officials of the ruling SDSM party into the scandal. With Ruskoska as the new Special Prosecutor, Zaev could rest easy knowing that the allegations of corruption in his Government will remain ignored.

Additionally, Zaev and his team have demanded that all employees of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, many of them relatives of disgraced chief Special Prosecutor Janeva or of her staff, are retained as part of the future SPO institution. Zaev demanded that Janeva’s prosecutors automatically become part of the new team.

Mickoski and his team responded to these requests by pointing out that the entire SPO institution has been seriously compromised and that all these requests are unacceptable.