Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski called a press conference on Saturday, shortly after the Interior Ministry announced that the main opposition leader Zoran Zaev and a former secret police chief Zoran Verusevski were charged with intimidating Government officials with a cache of files collected with apparent wire-tapping. Prime Minister Gruevski said that he had four meetings with Zaev between September and November, during which Zaev asked that his Social Democrat Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM) is made part of the Government, and threatened the publication of the files if that doesn't happen.

"Zaev wanted a technical Government formed immediately, and if not, he said he would publish tapped phone conversations involving the entire leadership of the country, which he obtained with the help of a foreign intelligence service. I asked him if he is sure about what he is trying to do, and if the files were really obtained from a foreign service, and he confirmed. He even told me about portions of the conversations he has, some of which were authentic, other were partially true, and some of them were incorrect. Zaev said he possesses tapped conversations involving the President, the Speaker of Parliament, Government members, journalists and politicians from the ruling coalition and the opposition. Even though the conversations were not entirely accurate, the fact that some of them were, showed the seriousness of the situation", Gruevski said at the press conference.

For the past five months Zaev and high ranking SDSM officials were announcing that they possess files they called "the bomb", which Zaev said will provoke the collapse of the Gruevski Government. Last week Zoran Verusevski, former head of the main secret police service DBK, appointed during the term of SDSM, was arrested on different charges, and four of his computers were confiscated. The Interior Ministry confirmed on Saturday that Verusevski was involved in an attempt, together with Zaev, to pressure the Government. The charges the Interior Ministry has filed with the Public Prosecutor are for violent threats aimed at Government officials with the goal to undermine the constitutional order in Macedonia.

Gruevski said that he has strong and irrefutable evidence that Zaev was threatening him and the Government. "There are some things that can't be ignored and that is the interest of the country. I will not allow threats, blackmails and set-ups. I couldn't believe that a person who would like to be in charge of this country can proudly say that he is cooperating with foreign intelligence services. Zaev said that he held a series of meetings with this foreign service, and asked that we form a technical Government in Macedonia", Gruevski added.

Verusevski, his wife and an official of the municipality of Strumica, where Zaev is Mayor, have been detained, while Zaev himself is not detained. In a comment published by a new site, he said that "this is a transparent attempt by the Government to prevent the publication of its crime and all the evil this criminal Government has caused".

Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska said that this is the first time in the history of Macedonia that the charges of attempt to violently overthrow the constitutional order are made. Jankuloska said that some of the electronic files held by Verusevski were classified, and other indicate illegal wire-tapping of phones which shouldn't be in his possession under any legal scenario. "We are satisfied by the material evidence we have to support the charges and we will leave to the Prosecutor's office to decide on their merit", Jankuloska said.

Police also found confidential material on a computer used by Verusevski's wife at her job in the Stopanska Bank, and she has been detained.

In 2000, then SDSM leader Branko Crvenkovski also published a cache of tapped phone conversations that involved officials and journalists which were found to be authentic. Crvenkovski then claimed that the recordings were made by the Macedonian secret services, and given to him by an insider.