SDSM: Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski uses criminal complaints to shield Alta Bank and intimidate opposition
SDSM claims National Bank charges against four senior officials are political pressure connected to an investigation of Alta Bank.
Opposition party SDSM accused Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski on Wednesday of using newly filed criminal complaints to shield Alta Bank and to intimidate dissenting politicians. The party said the complaints, lodged by the National Bank, target four senior SDSM officials and amount to political pressure.
Charges, claims and the Serbian probe
SDSM named the four party figures who are the subject of the National Bank's criminal complaints: Venko Filipche, Aleksandar Sasa Dimitrijevic, Andrej Zhernovski and Aleksandar Trajanovski. The party said the measures followed public statements the officials made about Alta Bank AD Bitola.
The party linked the development to parallel reporting from Serbia: it noted that, after information about an investigation there, the bank lost its licence and its owner, Davor Macura, was arrested. SDSM accused Mickoski and the central bank governor of having allowed a banned institution into Europe and of then attempting to shift blame onto the opposition.
SDSM said the government was acting at the behest of Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and called the move a cover-up. "Citizens know that Mickoski does everything on Vučić's orders, as was the case with bringing Alta Bank into Macedonia, his personal money-laundering operation. What Vučić did, Mickoski is now doing to the opposition in Macedonia. Copy-paste. Macedonia is becoming a captive state," the party said.
Pointing to an 11-month period of prior warnings, SDSM added that it had repeatedly raised concerns about Alta Bank. The party also questioned whether public prosecutors would cooperate: "Let's see whether prosecutor Saveski will be part of this and become an accomplice of this organized criminal group," SDSM said.
Both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the National Bank confirmed that the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia submitted criminal complaints yesterday related to serious, publicly voiced and unsupported allegations connected to Alta Bank. The National Bank filed the complaints with the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Skopje against several members of SDSM leadership for public statements about the bank.
Photo: press material from the event
