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Yesterday around 8 o'clock in the morning, he informed the court that he was unable to attend because he had obligations as a member of the working group of the Government. Given that the next hearing is scheduled for April 24, and that there will be other witnesses then, the hearing on which Bogoeski will testify that should be scheduled in the coming days, is likely to be after the elections.
This means that if Bogoeski repeated what he said before the US authorities, the alleged bribees would be mentioned in his testimony after the presidential elections, scheduled to be held on April 21.
If the Court accepted the proposal of the lawyers of one of the defendants, former managers of Makedonski Telekom, former Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski may also appear in court as a witness.
The lawyer of Telekom's former director Nenad Janicevic submitted a proposal to the court to summon Buckovski as a witness in his case, because from the testimony of the former director of the board of directors Telekom Dejan Mickovic and former minister Xhemaili Mehazi, it turned out that he was the signatory of the Cooperation Protocol that is part of this subject.
"He should be summoned for all real circumstances around the protocol to answer what this protocol would mean for Macedonia, what were the relations between Mickovic and Mehazi with Buckovski, and what were the relations with the executive director Atila Sendrei. Buckovski is a signatory to the protocol in the name of the then-government, so we demand that Buckovski be called to clarify and confirm the truth," said Janicevic.
The prosecutor of the Special Public Prosecutor's Office that runs this case Lile Stefanova, will address this motion at the next hearing, when the court should decide whether Buckovski will be or not summoned as a witness.
At the last hearing, the Special Public Prosecutor's Office unveiled an unofficial document, a non-paper, which confirms that former Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski, DUI leader Ali Ahmeti and former DUI minister Musa Xhaferi took 7.5m euros to postpone the introduction of third mobile operator in Macedonia.
This document was quoted in public, while the SPO Prosecutor Lile Stefanova interrogated former Minister of Transport and Communications Xhemali Mehazi, who was summoned to testify.
Buckovski in the statement for Nezavisen Vesnik/ndependent daily newspaper called this case an "Ustasha-Stalinist manipulation from the kitchen of the former head of intelligence, Bogoeski”. In a statement for Nezavisen Vesnik/Independent daily newspaper, he said that the SPO is being used in this case to improve the chances of its final status now being resolved.
"I had the document in my hands when I testified before the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington in February 2014, as shown by the prosecutor Stefanova. A document typed on a white sheet of paper without signatures and initials. It is an Ustasha-Stalinist manipulation. I am sorry that the SPO is being used with such methods. There are no bribees," claimed Buckovski.
In Macedonia, criminal charges were filed against four foreign nationals in December 2008, several years before the Americans did so. The accused were General Manager of Makedonski Telekom, Atila Sendrei, Finance Director Rolf Plat, and Mikhail Kefalogiannis and Zoltán Kaszás. But shortly afterwards, the charges against one of them was withdrawn.
Negotiations for the implementation of the scheme, through a Greek firm, took place between December and May 2005, and resulted in two secret contracts. The first was the "Cooperation Protocol", which lists the concessions that will be made by the Macedonian authorities and what they will receive in return. In the second agreement, "Non-Paper" quotes a bribe of 19.5 million euros. But only 4.8 million euros were paid because the scheme was revealed.
However, with the revealing of the non-paper, which lists the names of those who took bribes, the SPO gave signals that it targets Buckovski and DUI officials, but it is still unclear whether the SPO will prove these claims.
(FFS)