The Macedonian Ministry of Interior (MoI) filed criminal charges against the former mayor of the Municipality of Saraj, Blerim Bexheti, as well as against another official employed by the City of Skopje, on suspicion of abuse of office and authority.
“The Corruption Unit within the Criminal Investigations Sector in the Department for Suppression of Organized and Serious Crime filed a criminal charge on Friday, April 17, with the Skopje Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) against Z.D. (61) from Skopje, due to reasonable suspicion of committing a criminal offense – abuse of official position and authority under Art. 353, paragraph 3 in conjunction with paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code, and B.B. (49) from Skopje, due to reasonable suspicion of committing a criminal offense – abuse of official position and authority – provided for and punishable under Art. 353, paragraph 3 in conjunction with paragraph 1 in conjunction with Art. 45 of the Criminal Code.
Z.D. in his capacity as an authorized official, abusing his official position and authority, enabled a legal entity from the village of Krushopek – Saraj, or rather a subsidiary within the subject entity, located in the village of Glumovo, in the period from 01.02.2022 to 03.06.2022 to acquire unlawful property gain in the amount of MKD 3,224,064 (excluding VAT). He, after being authorized by the Mayor of the City of Skopje to sign acts in 2021, enabled the legal entity to acquire a right, i.e. a decision to determine a traffic regime, and on that basis, an authorization to perform a technical inspection of the legal entity, although he was aware that the authority to issue this type of decision is within the competence of the Municipality of Saraj, and not the City of Skopje, by which he acted contrary to Article 20 of the Law on Local Self-Government. Then B.B., in his capacity as an authorized official, the Saraj Municipality Mayor, abusing his official position and authorization, enabled the same legal entity to acquire an unlawful property benefit in the amount of MKD 42,851,205. Between October 2022 and March 2023, he twice adopted a decision to determine the traffic regime and a decision to amend and supplement the decision to amend and supplement the decision to determine the traffic regime based on requests submitted by the applicant (the legal entity in question), without previously carrying out due supervision of the submitted attachments and concluding that they were not in accordance with the Urban Plan for the village of Glumovo, thereby acting contrary to Article 50, paragraph 1, item 4 and item 11 of the Law on Local Self-Government, in connection with Article 20 of the Law on Urban Planning and Article 47 of the Law on Construction,” the Ministry of Interior said in a press release.
