The Criminal Council of the Basic Court Skopje 1 held a meeting where the decision for detention of the suspect Goran Grujevski commuted it to house arrest.
"Acting on the complaint of the defense of the suspect G.G. against the decision of the judge of the preliminary procedure for acceptance of the proposal of SPO, for detention of the suspect, the Criminal Council held a session where it made a decision to overturn the decision of the judge of the preliminary procedure and the detention of the suspect is replaced by house arrest, and after the decision which the parties have the right to appeal to a higher court", it is said in their statement.
This decision of the Criminal Council takes effect after the higher court decides upon if the parties make appeals as stated.
Grujevski, which appears as a prime suspect in the case "Fort" by the special public prosecutor’s Office, on Wednesday was on an eight-hour interrogation at the Basic Court Skopje 1 for his alleged involvement in the destruction of wiretapping equipment which was part of the Ministry of Interior Affairs.
Late in the evening the court accepted the prosecution's request and ordered the detention period of 30 days. Grujevski’s lawyers on Thursday appealed this decision.
According to the investigation of SPO, Grujevski is suspected to have committed criminal acts abuse of official position and authority and forgery of official document. SPO requested custody because of the danger of destroying evidence, influence on witnesses and because of the danger of escape.
In the case "Fort" suspected are two chiefs of the Department of Security and Counter Intelligence at the Ministry, who, according to SPO, along with the former Interior Minister in early 2015, stepping beyond the competence and using their position, along with chief on one of the departments of the Ministry, destroyed things for monitoring of communications and therefore they caused damage to the state of EUR 10 million.
Gruejvski as first suspect, according to SPO, in order to conceal other persons, issued oral orders to other organizational units in the Ministry of Interior Affairs for destroying the technical equipment with the excuse that is out of date.