Macedonian special prosecutors are seeking the arrest of former prime minister and VMRO-DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski, who is under investigation in three corruption cases. 

The Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) was set up to investigate alleged high-level corruption and crime revealed when illegally wiretapped conversations were leaked in 2015 by Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev, who recently became Macedonia’s prime minister after a lengthy period of instability following inconclusive elections in December.

Several of the cases under investigation by the SPO concern the activities of Gruevski and other top officials from VMRO, which ruled the country from 2006 until Zaev’s government took office at the end of May. 

On June 29, prosecutors said they had filed 17 indictments against 94 individuals, most of them top VMRO officials, as well as against seven legal entities. The indictments were filed one day before the expiry of the deadline for such action on June 30, the SPO said in a statement.

Gruevski is under investigation in three cases: Titanik, Tank and TNT. Charges are being pressed against Gruevski for criminal association, misuse of funds for financing an election campaign, violation of the right to vote, abuse of official position and receiving benefits from unlawful influence.

Prosecutors want Gruevski to be arrested, but previous attempts to have former and serving officials arrested have repeatedly been thwarted by the courts. 

This was the case with Titanik, which concerns election fraud. It was the first probe to be launched by the SPO, but received a setback when prosecutors’ request for eight people including two former ministers to be detained was dismissed by a Skopje court.

Gruevski appeared in court for a hearing over the TNT investigation into the demolition of a €58mn residential complex in Skopje, but the judge decided not to take measures against him or two other ministers named in the case. Meanwhile, the owner of the complex, Fiat Canoski — a political rival of Gruevski’s — has said he plans to sue the former prime minister. 

The third case in which Gruevski is under investigation, named Tank, concerns the purchase of a Mercedes worth over half a million euros for Gruevski using state funds. 

The SPO is also seeking the detention of several of Gruevski’s closest associates — former Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska, ex-Transport Minister Mile Janakieski, as well as Gruevski’s cousin and ex-secret police chief Saso Mijalkov.

VMRO-DPMNE immediately reacted to the news in a statement, in which Gruevski said that the party “is being attacked as never before”.

“Hundreds of people who are part of VMRO-DPMNE's structures or supporters are being prosecuted in order for the party to be destroyed or silenced,” Gruevski said in the statement. For him, this is a political, not legal process. At the end Gruevski said, “They will not succeed.”

The SPO was established on September 15, 2015 as part of the EU- and US-brokered Przino Agreement aimed at ending the political crisis in Macedonia, but has actually been functioning for only 10 months.