VMRO-DPMNE spokesman Dimitar Arsovski revealed that disgraced former Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva was receiving payment from the Zaev Government until 10 days before her arrest, and months after she was credibly accused of corruption and abuse of office.

Arsovski revealed that Janeva collected over 340.000 euros from her Special Prosecutor’s Office over four years, giving herself various bonuses, but at the same time was collecting a sizable payment from the Government for her involvement in the doomed council to reform the judiciary put together by now outgoing Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

These payments go years back. and continued even as Janeva announced her resignation as Special Prosecutor. She was collecting money in the midst of the Racket scandal. Millions of euros of taxpayers money were given to her and her prosecutors who were meant to bring justice, but instead engaged in extortion. They were collecting extra pay based on a “confidentiality bonus”, rents and Janeva had the exclusive privilege to set her own salary. And now the court is releasing her into house arrest on the pretext that she is unemployed and has no income. This is a huge stain on our judiciary, to have a prosecutor directly bribed by the Zoran Zaev Government, Arsovski said.

The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, which was the main target of Janeva’s politically driven persecution, has long called for an audit of the SPO. But surprisingly, a similar call came today from Pavle Trajanov, the former police chief and Interior Minister who helped SDSM and Janeva push VMRO out of office when he switched his allegiance as member of Parliament from the right to the left. At an event organized by Trajanov’s small party, he said that “all of Janeva’s prosecutors need to be investigated since it is clear that they were receiving payments outside of any legal or lawful standard”.

I had my reservations toward this SPO office, I said it is outside of the constitutional order but we all supporter it in the end because we hoped it will tackle the serious forms of criminal activity. Instead, the office went deep into crime itself and I think we need to conduct an analysis of its work, how it influenced politics, how it chose which cases to pursue and created cases to extort money from top businessmen, Trajanov said, calling on Janeva and her prosecutors to pay the money they took back to the state budget.