“Fokus” asks, MOI invites them

Editor-in-chief of the weekly Fokus, Zoran Dimitrovski, yesterday publicly asked the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior, Ivo Kotevski, a series of questions regarding the indications of the existence of a secret plant for preparation of passports, which the weekly published last week.

Dimitrovski requested an answer from the spokesmen of MOI to the questions: whether a machine, which weighs 8 tons, is necessary for preparation of forged passports, or they can be made at home conditions, whether the difference between fake and real biometric passport can be seen by a naked eye, whether SEC during the elections has a system for checking the authenticity of personal biometric documents at its disposal and whether committee members have been trained in MOI to identify forged passports and fake IDs?

MOI today issued a statement in which, among other things, it is said that so far none of the members of SEC reported any suspected abuse of a forged document, but they cannot exclude, as said in the statement, the possibility that “someone could dare to fold a paper handkerchief, paint it in red and write ‘passport’ on it.”

– We would like to point out that a few years ago there was a case in which a suspect printed euros in different value with a laser printer in his home. He was revealed and reported by the first store in which he used it. Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that someone would dare to fold a paper handkerchief, paint it in red and write “passport” on it. The modern technology applied by our partners from Germany guarantees that any forgery would be far from the original and would be easily recognized and detected – reads the statement from MOI.

To the question whether the members of SEC have undergone training to recognize fake identifications, MOI answered that the questions should be directed to the representatives of SEC.

– Whether and how election officials and observers at polling places are trained, what instructions are given to them, if and how they use the ink to ensure that the rule “one man – one vote” is upheld, are questions that should be answered by the State Election Commission. We are at the disposal of Fokus to come and visit us and be assured in the sophistication of the technology which is used for the preparation of the biometric passports of the second generation and again to explain the absurdity and error in the claims that AFIS is in any way associated with the process of issuing passports – stated representatives of MOI.