Former spy chief testifies for his role in the Telekom corruption case
Skopje, 23 September 2015 (MIA) - Macedonian Prosecutor's Office interrogated Slobodan Bogoevski, former head of the state security service UBK, for his role in the high profile corruption Telekom case, in which Deutsche Telekom and Magyar Telekom are suspected of bribing former Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski and leading officials of the ethnic Albanian coalition partner DUI Ali Ahmeti and Musa Xhaferi, in exchange for keeping the telecommunications market in Macedonia closed to additional competition.
Deutsche Telekom and Magyar Telekom bought little over half of the shares of Macedonian Telecommunications in 2000, in a joint bid with Greek businessman Dimitrios Kontominas and SEEF, a George Soros owned fund as smaller partners. The company, which was the only fixed line operator in Macedonia and was branching into mobile and internet services, remained the dominant telecom operator in the country even as Greek OTE established the smaller Kosmofon mobile operator in 2002, and other even smaller companies tried to offer internet and TV services.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission, which took Deutsche Telekom and Magyar Telekom to court in New York, where the companies settled in 2011 for 95 million USD, claiming they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to the allegations, Hungarian and German managers offered bribes to Buckovski through a number of his associates, as well as to Ahmeti and Xhaferi, again through intermediaries which included two managers working for Contominas. In exchange for bribes which amounted to estimated 12 million EUR, Buckovski, as Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democrat Union of Macedonia (SDSM) and the DUI officials agreed not to issue a bid for a third mobile phone operator, allowing the company to continue charging exorbitant sums from its customers who were left with no choice in the market. SDSM and DUI also gave a long list of regulatory concessions to the Macedonian Telecommunications company, in exchange for the bribes they received.
After successfully completing the case against Deutsche Telekom and Magyar Telekom, the SEC is now suing three Hungarians, managers of Magyar Telekom, using the same cache of evidence collected for the criminal suit, and calling dozens of Macedonian, Hungarian, German and Greek politicians and businessmen to testify. Bogoevski, who was appointed by SDSM as head of the UBK security service in the early 1990ies, and who is a eminence grise in the Macedonian secret police circles, was invited to testify as an additional witness, called up by the SEC afte an interview in which he claimed he played a part in organizing the entire bribery scheme. Bogoevski, questioned this Winter by the SEC and the legal counsel for the defendants, said that he was a key connection to Contominas and his two associates, Michail Kefaloyannis and Stavros Stavridis, and helped them organize a set of meetings with associates of Prime Minister Buckovski, his advisor and apparent bag-man Bekim Zemoski, with the Hungarian managers and especially with contacts in DUI and with Kosovan businessman Ekrem Lluka who, according to Bogoevski, was trying to join in on the deal. Money were drained from the Macedonian Telecommunications through bogus consulting contracts with a Cyprus based company controlled by Contominas called Chaptex, and were then, allegedly, returned to Macedonia and divided between SDSM and DUI.
Bogoevski claims that he held several incriminating documents, including a Protocol of cooperation signed by Prime Minister Buckovski and Transportation Minister Xhemali Mehazi (appointed by DUI) on one side and by Elek Straub, CEO of Magyar Telekom on the other, which provided that the Macedonian Government will not allow a third mobile operator into the country, keeping the near-monopoly Macedonian Telecommunications had in this area. It was only after the SDSM and DUI Government was defeated in the 2006 elections, the new Government, led by VMRO-DPMNE and its initial Albanian coalition partner DPA, issued a bid for a third mobile operator, bringing Telekom Austria into the country. A number of deregulation pushes also led to the introduction of competitors in landline and the growing internet market, and in 2009 Kosmofon was sold to the Telekom Slovenia, providing a third aggressive competitor in the mobile market. Prices dropped and internet penetration, which was among the lowest in Europe, has reached nearly 70 percent of all households today. With an on-going merger between the Telekom Austria and Telekom Slovenia mobile operators, Macedonian Telecommunications stand to drop to second place, with their mobile operator, now re-branded as T-Mobile, relegated to just 45 percent of the market it once dominated.
Macedonian Prosecutors have already initiated a case against several Hungarian, German and Greek managers of Macedonian Telecommunications over the Chaptex contracts and the alleged bribery of the former top Government officials, but as foreign citizens, they avoid appearing before the Macedonian court. The publication of the files presented before the court in New York opens the door to expand the case at home, and Bogoevski was called to testify behind closed doors for over four hours on Wednesday.
Bogoevski himself is sentenced to two years in prison over a money laundering case involving a failed attempt of the Slovenian Merkator retailer to open up a shopping mall in the capital Skopje. In his testimony before the SEC, Bogoevski also tried to spread the blame to the current VMRO-DPMNE leadership, claiming that they didn't push for prosecution of their predecessors in the Telekom corruption case, and that he was prosecuted for no reason in the money laundering case because he knew too much about the whole affair. Bogoevski claims that Saso Mijalkov, who until recently led the UBK secret service under the current VMRO-DPMNE administration, asked for bribes from a businessman close to Contominas in order to spare him from prosecution in the scandal.
During the Parliament question time on Wednesday, SDSM member of Parliament Hari Lokvenec repeated the claims Bogoevski has raised against VMRO-DPMNE, alleging that before the 2006 elections the Macedonian Telecommunications also gave a deal worth about 100.000 EUR to a company that at the time employed several former and current VMRO-DPMNE officials. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski responded that at the time of the corruption scandal VMRO-DPMNE was deep in opposition, unable to influence the regulation of the telecom market.
"At the time of the bribery, Radmila Sekerinska and Vlado Buckovski held the reins and they prevented the introduction of a third mobile operator until their very last day. In our program, VMRO-DPMNE promised that in the first 60 days of our Government we will open a bid for a third mobile operator. We delivered on our promise, and on our watch, prices dropped by 70 percent", Gruevski responded.
Buckovski is currently out of SDSM politics, having in the meantime been sentenced for another corruption case. But, current deputy leader of SDSM Radmila Sekerinska, was involved in the Telekom affair. Sekerinska was deputy Prime Minister at the time of the alleged bribery and as the person in charge of starting Macedonia's EU integrations, she received requests from the European Commission to liberalize the market and open it to competition, requests which the Government ignored while taking bribes from the dominant market player. One of the documents filed in the court in New York informs that the charged Hungarian managers gave a copy of a draft telecommunications law containing clauses that would allow them to keep their monopoly personally to Sekerinska. In the same document, the Hungarian managers say that it will be easy for them to push their version of the law through the Government, implying they had control over the Government
izvor: http://www.mia.mk/en/Inside/RenderSi.../323/132816560
Comment