Two police officers were detained this afternoon, reportedly for acting as whistleblowers in the major new scandal involving the Zaev regime.
Plusinfo reports that the detained officers are Aleksandar Janev – former head of the organized crime unit, and organized crime inspector Ilija Calsev Menis. The Interior Ministry later confirmed that not two but three unnamed police officials were interrogated in relation with violating “secrecy” laws, or in this case, leaking criminal activities by the police itself.
They’re suspected of leaking a police report that revealed how Zoran Zaev’s brother Vice Zaev was extorting money from a coal mining company. The full extent of the scandal was revealed by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party on Wednesday.
Party leader Hristijan Mickoski met with journalists and shared the police report made after the questioning of Vasko Vasilev, director of the Bitola based Rubiton mining company which won portion of the major coal mining contract in the state run REK Bitola power plant. Vasilev testified before police officers how Vice Zaev began muscling him out of the business – initially demanding that he hands over the contract to a company linked to the Zaev family, and then asking for 250,000 EUR as a share of the contract.
After Vasilev refused to pay, the contract was annulled by SDSM appointed Director of REK Bitola and later a portion of the contract was awarded to a company run by Vice Zaev.
Mickoski revealed to the press that in the original testimony, Vasilev named Vice Zaev directly. But someone in the Interior Ministry under orders by Zoran Zaev and Oliver Spasovski scrubbed Vice’s name and replaced him with “Vice N.”, apparently in the hope that the deliberate typo will be enough to obscure the Zaev family link to the scandal. The document which Mickoski shared with the press is likely confidential, and the officers who leaked it could be held responsible, but it is also evidence of serious criminal activity on the part of the Government which has become the norm on daily basis.
Policemen should know better though, Zaev’s family racket is filed under the category of “Government secrets”.
