Mickoski challenges Apasiev to prove business allegations in court

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Levica leader and MP Dimitar Apasiev clashed sharply during a parliamentary questions session in Skopje, after Apasiev accused Mickoski's relative by marriage of operating a network of businesses in North Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Allegations, company names and donation sums

From the rostrum, Apasiev said the prime minister’s bažanak (relative by marriage), Yordancho Janev — known as Dano — is linked to at least six companies, four registered in North Macedonia and two in Bulgaria. He named the firms Dano Trans, Interplast Group, Shalom Food Group and the recently established Shalom Delivery and D-Digital Konto, and said some generate million-euro revenues and show overlapping family and business ties.

Apasiev also alleged links between Janev and a cousin, Doncho Karastoev, whom he tied to a further network of nine companies. He claimed that Shalom Delivery was founded in 2024 and that a company connected to Janev won a municipal catering tender in Strumica to provide a celebratory lunch for 250 guests at the feast of the Holy Tiveriopolis martyrs.

He raised questions about donations to VMRO-DPMNE, saying that the director of a consulting and accounting firm he linked to Janev donated €2,500, while Janev himself has donated a total of €20,000 since 2019. Apasiev also said Janev’s cousin donated €5,000 in the 2024 elections. He mentioned an alleged hacienda in Strumica valued at €2,000,000 and warned that some claims lack independent confirmation.

Addressing Mickoski directly from the podium, Apasiev framed his questions in personal terms and described the family tie: "Honoured Prime Minister, today I will ask you on a subject in which you are strongest and I am weakest, and that is business. At the last parliamentary questions I said my questions will be direct with names and surnames and with pictures. Here is a picture of your bažanak, the person Yordancho Danev-Dano. There is even a song, aždanaḱ-banaḱ, whoever squeezes him let them come. Here I feel the squeeze, so I came. That is affinity by marriage. That means the husband of the sister of the wife is bažanak. This bažanak of the prime minister is a very fertile businessman. He also has Bulgarian citizenship," he said.

Mickoski rejected the allegations and invited Apasiev to repeat them publicly outside the assembly so they can be proven in court. From the rostrum the prime minister said: "Here I am inferior, because after me you will go out and throw another handful of lies and slanders. And naturally, like every coward, you will use or abuse the parliamentary rostrum without thereby having any criminal responsibility neither for defamation, nor for anything else. I invite you, as a big man, a brave man, which you are not, and not an ordinary coward, to come out and say this you said today also outside, in front of the media, at a press conference, and then we will meet in the arena where you are strongest, and that is the court. Then you will have to prove what you said today."

Mickoski confirmed the family tie — that Janev’s wife is the sister of Mickoski’s wife — and disputed the claim about the year Janev obtained Bulgarian citizenship, saying he holds it since 2003 rather than 2017. He described Janev’s background as emerging after his father lost work at the Treska factory and gave him a truck to start earning, and said Janev’s business has existed for more than 25 years.

In his rebuttal Apasiev again presented photos of Janev with Mickoski and returned to the donations and tender allegations. The exchange included insults and mutual provocation, and Mickoski accused Apasiev of making defamatory statements from the parliamentary rostrum instead of repeating them at a press conference.

Photo: Printskrin