Criminal complaint filed against former Strumica mayor over suspected abuse of office

The Strumica Internal Affairs Department has filed a criminal complaint with the city’s Public Prosecutor’s Office against former mayor Kostadin Kostadinov and two other people. K.K. (36), from Strumica, headed the municipality at the time of the suspected offense. S.R. (38), also from Strumica, was then head of the Municipality of Strumica’s Department of Urban Planning, Municipal Services and Construction Land, while J.P. (60), from Bitola, managed a legal entity based in that city that has since been liquidated.

K.K. and S.R. are suspected of “abuse of official position and authority,” an offense punishable under Article 353, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code. J.P. is suspected of “document forgery,” as provided for under Article 378, paragraph 1 of the same code.

According to the complaint, during 2022, K.K. and S.R. allegedly used their positions to enable a legal entity to legalize an illegally constructed building on a plot in the village of Kuklish. The legalization was carried out by S.R., who asked J.P. to prepare a report for the removal of buildings from the records for a cadastral parcel in Kuklish and to use it to remove properties owned by the Municipality of Strumica from the registers. This would allow a clean property title to be issued for the parcel.

J.P. prepared a report and a technical report containing false information stating that there were no buildings on the site. These documents were used to remove from the records the buildings owned by the Municipality of Strumica that stood on the cadastral parcel belonging to the Republic of Macedonia.

The suspects’ actions enabled T.J., from the village of Kuklish, to obtain an unlawful financial benefit. The first suspect issued a decision legalizing the illegally constructed building, designated as building No. 1 with use classification I4-B (warehouse), on the ground floor, level 1, with an internal commercial area of 161 m2 on the cadastral parcel. The procedure also paved the way for the purchase of the land beneath the building, the transfer of 866.46 m2 of land owned by the Republic of Macedonia, and its registration in T.J.’s name with ownership rights, the Ministry of Interior said. /Telegrafi/