Sasho Mijalkov, former director of the Administration for Security and Counter-Intelligence (UBK) of the Ministry of Interior, is creator of the idea of massive wiretapping, driven by political and business interests. In order to prove his guilt the SPO has provided a substantial amount of evidence, but also witnesses who helped in the disclosure of the affair and the highlighting of the motives, said special prosecutor Lence Ristovska at today’s hearing in the “Target-Tvrdina” case.
“We will prove that Sasho Mijalkov, Goran Grujevski and Nadica Nikolic, led by a desire for total control regarding the flow of information, and so to gain an advantage in the political and business area’s, they formed a criminal association that through continuous abuse of the systems for monitoring the communications, UBK, they carried out massive campaign of illegal wiretapping”, Ristovska said.
According to the prosecutor, the accused included Vladimir Varelov, Vasil Isakovski, Marijan Shumulkovski and the witnesses, Marijan Jankulovski and Zvonko Kostovski, they were under the direct control of Mijalkov, who took part in the tapping himself, said Ristovska.
“The defendant Mijalkov, as director of the UBK was organizer of the association, he kept all participants under his control and supervision, and at the same time, he, himself illegally monitored the communications of some of the citizens, and he also had an overview of all the telephone numbers which were being monitored. Gruevski as his closest associate forwarded Mijalkov’s requests and plans to Nikolic, who distributed tasks to other participants. She also ordered tasks by which certain telephone users would be targeted and transcribed”, explained the special prosecutor.
The request by the accused Sasho Mijalkov and Valentina Simonovska not to be tried for the offense they were charged with, was turned down. It was requested by the defendant’s lawyers who called on the amnesty that the president of the state, Gjorge Ivanov signed in 2015 for about 50 people, then under the scrutiny of the SPO in connection with the affair.
Judge Dzaneta Begovic, however, explained that the request was rejected because during the assessment of the indictment the decision had already been made, i.e. the defendants did not receive amnesty.
