Self proclaimed journalist Zoran Bozinovski was released on Friday, after spending 15 months in jail over charges that he blackmailed businessmen and politicians threatening them with revealing embarrassing information.
The Public Prosecutor asked that Bozinovski is released from detention, and the court ordered him to report during the trial. Several former intelligence officers were also detained in the case, with allegations that they used the material they had access to to blackmail people and demand money. Charges in the case included cooperating with foreign intelligence services and trading of classified information.
Bozinovski, who during the time published reports on social media and on his own news site while living mostly in Serbia, refused to travel to Macedonia to face trial. He was eventually extradited, but not before he published a racy audio tape of a conversation including a leading DUI female member of Parliament, which later removed herself from politics. Known for his dramatic announcements, he is best remembered for claiming that the beloved young singer Toshe Proeski, who was killed in a car crash in 2007, is alive and hiding in a monastery.
