Titanic trial adjourned until April 26

Trial in Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) case dubbed “Titanic” will resume on April 26 after a defense lawyer asked for the trial judges to be exempted.

Judge Osman Shabani said the lawyer’s motion would be forwarded to the Appellate Court.

Lawyer Elenko Milanov urged for the exemption of judges Osman Shabani and Ognen Stavrev from the case, referring to the March 23 statement of Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva that some judges had been wiretapped and were part of the “bombs”. He still has not received an answer from the SPO whether Shabani and Stavrev were among the judges subject to the wiretapping.

“Titanic”, the first case unveiled by the SPO, refers to crimes related to election irregularities. Twenty-one individuals are indicted in the case, including former prime minister Nikola Gruevski, former minister of interior Gordana Jankuloska, former minister of transport and communications Mile Janakieski, former PM’s office chief Martin Protogjer and former government secretary-general Kiril Bozinovski.

They are suspected of criminal association, violation of voting rights, violation of the freedom of choice, election bribes, destruction of election materials and abuse of election campaign funds in 2012.