Saso mijalkov biography of williams

Sasho Mijalkov is the son of Jordan Mijalkov, the first Interior Minister of the Republic of Macedonia. The two men were tried in absentia, however, as they are hiding from justice in Greece.

Former secret police official Toni Jakimovski was sentenced to six years, while another former secret police official, Nadica Nikolic, got three years, having been found guilty of participating in the criminal group that organised and carried out the illegal wiretapping.

The court also handed four years’ jail to former Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska who was found guilty of helping to destroy the surveillance equipment used for the illegal wiretapping during 2015.

According to the charges, between 2008 and 2015, when Gruevski was in power, the defendants illegally wiretapped more than 4,200 telephone numbers without obtaining court orders to do so.

Another 1,541 phones were also tapped on court orders for a period – but, according to the prosecution, they were illegally followed both before the court orders were issued and after they had expired.

“The court was unequivocally convinced that the massive illegal wiretapping was done by misusing the secret police and its equipment and was not conducted by some third party or individual,” one of the presiding judges, Vladimir Tufegdzic, told the court.

The court said it was also convinced “that the organiser of this criminal association was precisely the defendant Saso Mijalkov, at a time when he held real power,” Tufegdzic said.

“Mijalkov kept the other members of the group under control, guaranteed their immunity from prosecution and operationalised the motives for the illegal surveillance of the citizens by saying whose telephone should be wiretapped.

He had insight into the tracking of the numbers at every moment,” Tufegdzic continued.

When the affair broke out in public in 2015, the group tried to cover their tracks and illegally destroyed the equipment they had used illegally under the false pretext that it was old and obsolete, the court heard.

The court gave suspended two-year jail sentences to five defendants: Vladimir Varelov, Marijan Sumolikovski, Silvana Zlatkova, Vasil Isakovska and Valentina Simonovska.

As a mitigating circumstance for these defendants, the court noted that, as lower-ranking employees in the secret police, they were under tremendous pressure from their superiors to assist in the crimes.

Photo: Robert Atanasovski

Surveillance at heart of North Macedonia’s political crisis

On February 9, 2015 when the then opposition and now ruling Social Democrats revealed for the first time the massive illegal wiretapping scheme, accusing then Prime Minister Gruevski and his secret police chief Mijalkov of masterminding the surveillance of thousands of people.

The wiretaps raised serious allegations about the Gruevski regime’s tight grip on society, suggesting the government was involved in appointing judges and prosecutors, rigging elections, framing political opponents, eavesdropping on the opposition, businessmen, bankers, lawyers and reporters – and even on its own ministers.

The scandal launched the country into a two-and-a-half-year political crisis that ended in May 2017 with the fall from power of Gruevski and his VMRO DPMNE party.

The trial codenamed ‘Target-Fortress’ by the authorities, started on December 22, 2017.

Zvonko and I would have been stifled by the material, but he [Veruseski] knew how to process it, he was discreet and he worked alone,” he said.

Verushevski said that he handed the materials to the Social Democrats’ leader Zoran Zaev, who is now prime minister, believing that this would be the best course of action to expose the illegal scheme.

But he also said that he believes that the former secret police chief Mijalkov was wrongly accused of masterminding the operation, arguing that the real mastermind behind the wiretapping was former premier Gruevski, because of “his obsession with staying in power”.

Gruevski however was never directly indicted over the claims of mass surveillance.

He said he handed them to Veruseski, who was close to the Social Democrats, and who knew how to properly analyse the covertly-recorded conversations.

“I considered Veruseski a professional who was not a conventional party member. He fled the country in 2018, dodging a jail sentence in another case. He is first cousin of Nikola Gruevski the current Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia.

The material ended up in the hands of the Social Democrats.

Lazarevski told the court that the trio first started taking away incriminating evidence of the illegal surveillance back in 2010.

He was using DVDs to smuggle it out, and did this until 2013, when he was sacked. All the suspects were former senior police officials and employees.

Former secret police officials Goran Grujevski and Nikola Boskoski were sentenced to 15 years in jail each, having been found guilty of criminal association and misuse of office.