Skopje, 16 December 2022 (MIA) – The Skopje Appellate Court upheld the appeals of seven people found guilty in the case commonly referred to “Target-Fortress”, also annulling the first-instance verdict and returning the case to the Skopje Criminal Court for a repeated procedure. Also, it found the appeal of the Public Prosecution for Organized Crime and Corruption “groundless”.

In a press release on Friday, the Appellate Court says it has found that the first-instance court “had violated the provisions of the Law on Criminal Procedure, which are of absolute character and the Court abides by them ex officio thus bringing into question the actual situation and the right application of the Criminal Code.”

In February 2021, the Skopje Criminal Court sentenced 11 people to a total of 65 years in prison, including 10 years in suspended sentences in the Target-Fortress trial, in which they were tried for their involvement in mass wiretapping and destruction of the equipment of the secret police.

The Court sentenced the former head of the secret police, Sasho Mijalkov, to 12 years in prison on three counts, including abuse of office.

The Court sentenced Goran Grujevski, former official of the intelligence service, and intelligence officer Nikola Boshkoski, to 15 years each. They were tried in absentia after fleeing to Greece.

Also, former interior minister Gordana Jankuloska was sentenced to four years in prison for abuse of office.

Eleven people were on trial, which began in December 2017.

Reacting to the news, Deputy Prime Minister for Good Governance Policies Slavica Grkovska expressed concern and called on the Appellate Court to explain the reasons behind this decision.

“With a huge dose of concern, I learned of the news that the Appellate Court has revoked the first-instance verdict in the Target-Fortress case in which people were tried for abuse of office after wiretapping thousands of citizens. Even more concerning is the information that the case could become statute-barred, which constitutes violation of the fundamental human rights,” Grkovska wrote on Facebook.

Commenting on today’s decision of the Appellate Court, Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski called it “utterly humiliating”, further eroding the public trust in the system.