The Criminal Court of Skopje made a significant decision on Tuesday, granting the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s request to suspend the legal proceedings related to the “wiretapping scandal”.
The grounds for this suspension were the expiration of the case and recent changes in the Penal Code that introduce leniency for various offenses connected to the abuse of official authority.
This decision effectively means that the former director of North Macedonia’s Secret Police, Sašo Mijalkov, and five other former officials from the Ministry of Interior of North Macedonia will be released. They were accused of wiretapping over 20,000 Macedonian citizens, including politicians, lawmakers, journalists, religious figures, opposition members, and others, during the period from 2013 to 2016.
This wiretapping scandal stands as one of the most notable controversies in North Macedonia and occurred during the tenure of the former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who later fled from justice.
According to Prosecutor Lence Ristovska, the acceptance of her request by the judicial panel reflects the potential application of lighter legal measures enabled by recent changes in the Penal Code. Ristovska also emphasized the importance of ensuring the effective application of substantive law with regard to the expiration of criminal proceedings.
In 2021, Mijalkov and his associates were sentenced to a collective 55 years in prison following a protracted legal process that commenced in 2017 and featured the testimony of 200 witnesses.
However, in 2022, the Appeals Court overturned these convictions, citing procedural irregularities in the initial trial, and ordered a retrial.
The wiretapping scandal first came to light in 2015 when it was exposed by Zoran Zaev, the former leader of the Social Democratic Union, who later became the Prime Minister of North Macedonia in 2017.
This scandal had far-reaching consequences, including widespread protests and tensions in North Macedonia, eventually leading to the removal of Nikola Gruevski from power and the holding of early parliamentary elections.
