One of the criminal offenses in the "lengthy" case "Talir 1" in which the ruling VMRO-DPMNE and former party officials are accused has expired, but prosecutor Lence Risotska, who is leading the case and has already reported Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski for pressuring her with insults because he is freezing the party's assets, is adamant that the statute of limitations for the other criminal offense "money laundering" expires in 2035.
Today's hearing was postponed because the prosecutor submitted a corrected indictment, given that the latest criminal offense "abuse of official position and authority", which is predicated, i.e. arises from the basic criminal offense "money laundering" for which all defendants are being prosecuted, has expired for the defendants Kiril Bozinovski and Nikola Gruevski.
-In this particular case, the predicate crime, i.e. the crime of "Abuse of Official Position and Authority", has become statute-barred due to the expiration of the statutory statute of limitations and the amendments to the Criminal Code adopted in 2023. However, despite the outdated predicate, in accordance with the Law and existing case law, there are no obstacles to prosecuting money laundering in this case, for which the statute of limitations begins in 2035. All those accused of abuse are also accused of money laundering, only for two defendants the predicate crime has become statute-barred, while for all the others the trial for money laundering continues, including these two. We are talking about Nikola Gruevski and Kiril Bozinovski - explains Ristoska.
With today's postponement of the hearing, which was not attended by the political party's lawyer Doncho Nakov, the trial will start from the beginning for the sixth time, as 90 days have passed since the last hearing. According to Ristoska, the defendants' only strategy is to avoid responsibility by delaying and statute of limitations.
-With today's postponement, it means that the trial will have to start from the beginning next time, for the sixth time, and I would say that in this case, the evidentiary strategy of the defendants, among other things, is focused on postponing this procedure, because only through the statute of limitations can they escape responsibility, because this is a case for which they themselves are aware that the Prosecution has solid evidence - says Ristoska.
While the trials for "Talir 1" and "Talir 2" are ongoing, cases in which the White Palace and all of the ruling party's property are frozen, public insults from the ruling VMRO-DPMNE towards Ristoska are also "flowing", but most recently from the prime minister, who called her a "mediocre" with a "political-corruption matrix". Ristoska filed a defamation lawsuit against VMRO-DPMNE, which accused her of taking bonuses and called her a "failed star of the SPO", and the prime minister reported her to the Council of Public Prosecutors.
-I am taking on all institutional mechanisms at my disposal, because it is forbidden for any accused person to put pressure on a public prosecutor, at least from a position of power. If I filed a lawsuit for the political party, I filed a notification for the Prime Minister to the Council of Public Prosecutors - added Ristoska.
The Council has already formed a Commission that will investigate Ristoska's reporting on the Prime Minister, although he said he did not mention her by name and found it strange how she recognized herself.
She interprets the reason behind all these attacks as pressure on her after she did not give approval to unfreeze the party's assets in the court cases codenamed "Talir" that are still pending before the Criminal Court.
