The Basic Court of Skopje decided on January 13 to acquit Gordana Jankulovska of the charges, for the "Fortesa" case, which is about the destruction of the surveillance devices, which are considered illegal and unauthorized.
Jankulloska, who served as Minister of Internal Affairs (MIB) from August 2006 to May 2015, was released in the absence of evidence "proving her involvement in the disposal of the equipment".
"The accused Jankulloska is acquitted of the charge because the public prosecutor did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed the crime for which she is accused," said judge Ilija Trpkov.
In the same case, the court found Toni Jakimovski guilty, sentencing him to three years in prison - counting the period he spent in custody - Valentina Simonovskan, who received a suspended sentence of two years, if during the next five years she does not commits any other criminal offense.
For the same crimes, with 9 and 14 years in prison, Nikola Boshkovski, a former employee of the Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence (DSK), as well as Goran Grujevskin, the chief of staff of the former director of the DSK, Sasho Mijallkov, were sentenced.
Grujevski and Boshkovski were tried in absentia, after they were arrested in June 2017 from North Macedonia in the direction of Greece.
The defendants were found guilty of destroying communications interception devices in order to hide their tracks. With these actions, according to the judicial authorities, they have caused damage to the state in the amount of 1 million and 418 thousand euros.
Judge Trpkov decided that Grujevski, Jakimovski and Boshkovski should compensate the damage done in the amount of 87,422,668 denars within three months.
According to the indictment, through three systems for tracking communications, in the period from 2008 to 2015, 4,286 phone numbers (politicians, journalists, citizens) were illegally tracked for which orders were not issued by the judiciary.
The case with the illegal wiretapping "Fortesa" and "Target-Fortesa" began in June 2017. Mijallkov was also involved in them.
However, after the 2023 changes to the Criminal Code, which provide for the statute of limitations for cases of high corruption, the offenses of criminal association and abuse of official position, with which Mijalkov was charged, were declared statute-barred.
Trpkov called these changes "an intervention in the judiciary"./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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