The trial “Target-Tvrdina” about the illegal wiretapping in the period between 2008 and 2015 continued today at the Criminal Court in Skopje. The former UBK’s Director Sasho Mijalkov and the former Minister of Interior Gordana Jankuloska, the fugitives Goran Grujevski and Nikola Boshkovski, Toni Jakimovski, but also several employees of the former UBK, have been accused of illegal wiretapping of over 4.000 thousand telephone numbers.
During today’s trial, there were testimones by politicians, businessmen, attorneys, journalists, that were wiretapped and as a result are demanding millions as compensation for the financial consequences from the wiretapped conversations.
Komercijalna Banka’s Executive Director Hari Kostov, as one of the witnesses in the “Target-Fortress”, said that personally he isn’t feeling damaged by it, but he stressed the possibility of causing damages to companies that the bank has worked with while the secret police had been listening to the conversations.
The owner of the Euroaktiva company, Nuhi Aliu, stated that the damage caused is over 10 million EUR.
“In 2012, I was part of a process against my company, with the intent of being harmed. The doubt arose out of the way the control was carried out, with Hermelin armored vehicles and police officers with automatic rifles. At SPO I spoke three hours when I gave my testimony. The damage caused is enormous and it cannot be paid with money,” said Aliu.
The former head of the secret police Slobodan Bogoevski also testified and stressed that in the period when the illegal wiretapping had been carried out, from 2008 until 2015, he was working as a consultant at a private firm.
“I was warned by employees at UBK that my communications are monitored and that I’ve been physically followed, where I was going and with whom I was talking. In 2009, I received information that there were illegal requests for investigation measures against me,” said Bogoevski.
The witness Gjakush Kabashi, an employee at the Council of Europe’s office in Skopje, also testified about the illegal wiretapping. He had filled a request at SPO about the wiretapping and received a reply that his telephone was wiretapped in a total of 1.267 days.
The former head of army intelligence, professor Vladimir Pivovarov, currently an employee at the Government of Macedonia, said that SPO has confirmed that his private mobile phone was wiretapped. “I’m not demanding compensation from the state’s budget, but from those who committed the felonies,” said Pivovarov.
