Mihaillov: I was convicted without a single piece of evidence in Macedonia; the aim was to take my business

Simeon Mihaillov, who was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison in the “Detonator” case and is wanted by North Macedonian authorities through an international arrest warrant, has published a video presenting his version of the reasons behind his conviction.

A day earlier, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said he expected Bulgaria to extradite Iva Mihaillova’s father. The latter is currently on trial in Kochani on charges of causing a traffic accident resulting in a death.

According to Mihaillov, during Nikola Gruevski’s government in Macedonia, he ran a successful business that included several casinos. He claims that, with the aim of taking the business away from him and dozens of other people in the same situation, he was charged with money laundering.

Mihaillov says the Prosecutor’s Office failed to secure evidence for the charge and that he was released after spending four years in pretrial detention behind bars.

He says that immediately afterward he was accused of planting a bomb beneath a person’s vehicle, together with a group of people whom, he claims, he does not know. For this case, he says he was sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison, without a single piece of evidence being presented.

According to Mihaillov’s claims, the casinos he owned were transferred into state ownership and then hastily sold to people close to the government. He accuses Sasho Mijalkov, the former director of the security service in Skopje, of being behind it all.

Meanwhile, his daughter, Iva, has asked the court to return her passport so that she can leave Macedonia. For the time being, the court has rejected the request because of the risk of flight and in order to ensure her presence at the hearings in the proceedings that will determine whether she bears criminal responsibility for the road accident. At the first hearing, Mihailova pleaded not guilty.