Prosecutor Lence Ristoska during a court session. Photo: Robert Atanasovski.

Lence Ristoska announced her resignation from the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Skopje on Thursday, saying her recent removal from two important cases had been the last straw in a series of moves aimed at preventing her from doing her job and discrediting her.

“The recent decisions of the Council of Public Prosecutors and the new Chief Public Prosecutor are greatly damaging the position of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and all of this is contrary to all the principles I have been fighting for and advocating over the years. Removal from the ‘Talir 1’ and ‘Talir 2’ cases was the culmination,” Ristoska told reporters.

On Tuesday, the new Chief Prosecutor, Nenad Saveski, who assumed office in March, removed her from the two high-profile cases, both of which target the alleged illegal financing of the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party of Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.

Just one day before, the Prosecutor’s Council, a governing body of which Saveski is a member, rejected her complaint in which she had sought its legal protection, alleging that prime minister and VMRO DPMNE leader Mickoski was exerting pressure on her because of her work on the two cases. The Prosecutors’ Council said it found no evidence of political pressure.

Ristoska said appointing a new prosecutor in these complex cases would be a major setback for them, especially for the “Talir 2” case, as the statute of limitation for it expires in August, and the case “had a chance to be concluded”, she said.

The “Talir” cases, which originate from the now-defunct Special Prosecution, SJO, where Ristoska worked until its dissolution in 2020, involve allegations of illegal party financing during the rule of then VMRO DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski, prime minister between 2006 and 2016.

The first case focuses on alleged illegal financing while the second accuses Gruevski and others of misuse of office related to the construction of the party’s lavish HQ in Skopje.

Over the past year, Ristoska found herself under increased public pressure from the ruling party and the PM. Last year, the government abruptly annulled her candidacy for the European Court of Human Rights without explanation. Later, Mickoski said the candidates on the short list did not meet the standards.

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister insulted her as a “mediocrity with a political game plan” – insinuating also that she was working on behalf of the opposition Social Democrats.

During the election procedure for a new Chief Prosecutor, in which she was a candidate, the Prime Minister rejected her candidacy from the start, saying she would definitely not be elected.

Following her removal from the “Talir” cases, on Tuesday the ruling party accused Ristoska and other former SJO colleagues of being “mercenaries” and “expensively paid scum who buried justice”.

Ristoska added that after her resignation, she plans to share more light on the workings of the prosecutorial and judicial system, in the hope that she can exert more positive change on them from the outside than she could while being part of it.