The director of the "Idrizovo" prison, who was dismissed yesterday, Spend Tahiri, believes that members of the prison police were involved in the escape plan through a tunnel dug by the inmates, he told "Фокус". Tahiri says he did not trust the prison police while in office. He was dismissed yesterday, at the same time when the existence of the tunnel in Idrizovo was revealed, but he says that it has nothing to do with the scandals in the prison, but the reason is that he comes from the Alternative party, which is no longer in power.

Yesterday, a 40-meter-long tunnel was discovered in "Idrizovo", through which prisoners sentenced to long sentences wanted to escape from the largest Macedonian prison. A light was even installed in the tunnel, with lamps and extension cables for electricity.

- It is not a crime there, but a hotbed of crime and corruption. I am not defending the prison police. I have filed criminal charges with the public prosecutor's office against five prison officers, I have initiated 45 disciplinary procedures. I can't defend them, because crime is flourishing there and it's not from my time, but long before me - says Tairi, who was in office for eight months and who expects arrests of prison officers in the period to come.

He doubts that the prisoners who dug the tunnel had protection from the prison officials - he explains that the beginning of the tunnel was located in a room that the prisoners used for walking, and which the prison police rarely entered.

-Years ago the prisoners used that room in the facility outside the prison ward, and they had some intimacy there. Prison officers rarely, if ever, entered there. There was the beginning of the tunnel. We received some information on February 15 and immediately started checking the information - says Tahiri.

According to him, the convicts have already started to cover their tracks. When asked how it was possible that the digging took place for months, and that it was not known earlier, the director says that the closed department in Idrizovo is guarded by only four policemen, and over 500 convicts are serving their sentences there.

- Why so little, ask Kovacevski. We lack 120 prison officers in Idrizovo. Prison officers from Kumanovo and Shtip come to help every day. We borrow five from there and five from there to cover ourselves. While I was the director, I did not have any meeting or meeting in the Government to inform them firsthand, they were not at all interested in the situation in "Idrizovo", says Tahiri.

He accused Prime Minister Kovacevski that by dismissing him just yesterday, he wanted to make a political point, because it was certain that Tahiri would be removed from his directorship as a member of Alternativa.

- I knew that yesterday I would be destroyed because I am part of Alteraniva. But Kovacevski wants to make a political point. I don't understand, it wasn't meant to be. Even though I knew I would be fired, I continued to work on discovering the tunnel, I wanted to prevent that. I worked until the last minute. I actually saved his term, because if I hadn't, the prisoners would have found the tunnel and escaped. After that he would have to resign - he points out.

VIDEO: The tunnel in "Idrizovo" is 40 meters long, the prisoners also installed electricity