As of Sunday afternoon, ex-secret police chief Sasho Mijalkov has not been available to law enforcement officials and the police failed to find him and give the house arrest order, which was submitted to the Skopje Criminal Court by the prosecution.
Interior Ministry told to MIA that the court ordered for Mijalkov to be placed under house arrest and that measures and activities are being taken to find him.
The prosecution filed a request for house arrest due to the danger of escape pending the trial verdict in the ‘Target-Fortress’ case on Feb. 26, in which Mijalkov is one of the defendants. The Public Prosecutor’s Office told TV 24 that the court did not order his detention, but a milder measure of restraint – house arrest.
Thus far, neither the prosecution nor the court has official information. They say further information will follow later in the day.
No arrest warrant has been issued on the Interior Ministry’s website for Mijalkov, who, according to the reporters of TV 21, was last seen on Sunday afternoon in the Skopje Marriott Hotel.
The prosecutors, who delivered the closing arguments at the previous hearing in the ‘Target-Fortress’ case, demanded maximum prison sentence for the defendant Sasho Mijalkov.
According to the indictment, between 2008 and 2015, the defendants, including ex-interior minister Gordana Jankulovska and ex-secret police chief Sasho Mijalkov, by using three different surveillance systems for intercepting communications as part of the former secret police, illegally wiretapped close to 4,300 telephone numbers without obtaining court orders to do so.
The court is expected to hand down the verdict in the trial on Feb. 26.
