Intelligence scandals: a comparative analytical model and lessons learned from the test case of North Macedonia

ABSTRACT

Most countries that possess intelligence services have encountered intelligence scandals involving actual or alleged intelligence activities. This paper offers a definition of intelligence scandal and creates a new analytical model for assessing intelligence scandals. Application of the analytical model to six key intelligence scandals in North Macedonia shows that various intelligence and political actors can commit a wide range of transgressions in largely internal and external political contexts with very broad political and security impacts. The case also shows the competitive nature of the triggers of the scandals, various kinds of actors’ defences, and the scandals’ long duration.

Introduction

Most countries that possess intelligence services have encountered several intelligence scandals. Nevertheless, the large number of intelligence scandals and their strong media coverage have not led to the development of many systematic analytical and comparative approaches in intelligence studies beyond a simple description of individual cases. One finds a gap in the academic literature concerning the role of intelligence scandals, their causes, basic transgressions by services and consequences. At the same time, a vast number of political scandals have been analysed by political scientists, and sometimes these studies may include some intelligence scandals. This means it might be appropriate and useful to draw on the literature on political scandals and extract key variables that could be applied in a more systematic study of intelligence scandals.

More comprehensive and comparative analysis of intelligence scandals in various countries may lead to the creation of useful lessons for intelligence studies and intelligence education. The intelligence field is characterised by secrecy, making it difficult to perform research works. This elusive area is considerably exposed by each intelligence scandal, and we should take the opportunity such scandals provide to learn mostly about mistakes, transgressions, modus operandi, covert operations and how to improve oversight. This theme is also relevant due to the performative role of intelligence scandals: the future of intelligence, oversight, and public perception will be determined by how we deal with today’s intelligence scandals.

The main research questions this paper aims to answer are as follows: 1) what does an intelligence scandal mean and 2) what are its constitutive elements or variables? The goal of this paper is to define the intelligence scandal concept, determine its basic variables with comparative values, while identifying lessons from key intelligence scandals in one selected test state: North Macedonia (previously known as FYROM – the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). We argue that an intelligence scandal is a symptomatic type of political scandal that sheds light on the covert, irregular, dysfunctional, illegal or at least dubious activity of an intelligence service for the wider public. Intelligence scandals are not simply about exposing transgressions in the intelligence field but about reinforcing the primacy of democratic values, norms and legitimizing further changes made to intelligence systems. We also argue that intelligence scandals may be analysed with respect to the following variables: intelligence transgression, context, immediate triggers, actors involved, actors’ defence, time dynamics and consequences. The case of North Macedonia is used to show that intelligence scandals can be analysed in terms of these variables, demonstrating that various intelligence and political actors can commit a wide spectrum of transgressions in largely internal and external political contexts with broad political and security impacts. The case will also illustrate the competitive nature of the triggers of scandals, various kinds of actors’ defences and scandals’ prolonged duration. To obtain information about the intelligence scandals in the case selected, we collected electronic and printed media records on the above-mentioned variables in the Macedonian and English languages. Such a media-based approach makes sense because scandals are mediated events constantly reproduced by print and electronic media.

The first part of this paper explains the intelligence scandal concept in the broader conceptual framework of political scandals. In the second part, we set out our research model involving seven variables. In empirical terms, the paper focuses on six intelligence scandals in North Macedonia, each investigated with regard to the seven variables.

Intelligence scandal as a form of political scandal

Political scandals are a central and recurring feature of modern democracies and appear to be growing in number. Scandals have become an occupational hazard of life in the public domain.¹ The scandal risk factor or susceptibility to scandals in the intelligence field is very high due to limited transparency or high secrecy, centrality of covert actions or means, limited public oversight and high susceptibility of services to violating the law at certain points in their activity.

A tension between the modern concept of liberal democracy and all forms of the secretive pursuit of power is clearly on display in the theory of political scandals. Adut stressed that the pursuit of power in democracies is constrained by rules and procedures, the breaching of which is seen as abuse.² Others stress that all liberal democracies face a tension between due process and power.³ Some kind of schizophrenic attitude with respect to the use of political power arises from the clash between faith in the democratic process, on the one hand, and the effective use of political power, on the other. This clash between two almost contradictory values (the process and the power) is a result of the liberal reaction against hierarchical and feudal society, leading liberal theory to dismiss and curtail the randomness, secretiveness and exclusive character inherent to the exercise of political power. The logic of power by nature comprehends accumulation, secrecy and exclusivity, whereas the logic of due process is by its nature public-oriented, open and inclusive. Political, and many intelligence, scandals occur when activities are undertaken to increase (political) power at the expense of process and procedure. Political power is chiefly understood in political science and sociology as an enabling or repressive resource for achieving community ends that is unequally distributed in society (among political elites, classes, individuals, etc.).⁴ Intelligence power constitutes a particular kind of state power that optimizes strength and international influence in peacetime and promotes the effective use of force in war and other conflicts.⁵ Intelligence agencies with their information and operational outputs or their intelligence power can contribute to the political power of their masters (political actors). These power-seeking actors can use and misuse intelligence services as a tool in their political contests.

This clash of values is also clearly shown in the intelligence literature, where following some democratization of intelligence in the 1990s, the prosecution of the ‘war on terror’ following the events of 11 September 2001 (9/11) reinforced for some the incompatibility of secret intelligence and respect for human rights.⁶ Calls were made to adapt the intelligence services to the ‘new era of accountability’ and to recognize that there are ups-and-downs in terms of control over these services and their openness.⁷ At the same time, the field of intelligence studies, or at least parts of it, entered a cultural turn, one based on changes in the fields of secrecy, publicity and mentality. Willmetts explained that there are two essential conditions for a full-fledged cultural turn in intelligence studies: (a) openness to new methodologies and theoretical paradigms and (b) a new understanding of historical causality that is integrative, recognizing that intelligence does not constitute itself independently of and external to society but is a place for continuous socio-political interaction. Accordingly, intelligence agencies are enmeshed in a complex ecosystem of political, social and cultural phenomena. Secrecy stands in a symbiotic relationship with public trust. Distrust is the natural corollary of secrecy, and mounting distrust in government has been an inevitable outcome of rapid expansion of the secret state. Secrecy is the bread and butter of intelligence power, yet also a double-edged sword that often threatens the very social fabric it seeks to protect. This means that intelligence services are increasingly engaged in a dynamic process of information management: defining what is made public and, if so, how has become just as important as defining what is kept secret.⁸

What then does ‘intelligence scandal’ exactly mean? The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines scandal as ‘an act, behaviour that causes public feelings of outrage or indignation’; ‘an action, attitude that is disgraceful or shameful’.⁹ The primary political element in a scandal is concealment and its exposure.¹⁰ Scandals are public events par excellence; they are publicized transgressions. What they reveal is important, namely, the disruptive publicity of real, apparent or alleged transgressions. Scandals gather power from publicity, the anticipated or actual effects of publicity.¹¹ We may thus define an intelligence scandal as a public scandal concerned with an intelligence service, its personnel and agents, operations and other activities, networks and oversight. Specifically, an intelligence scandal refers to a public disclosure in print or electronic media with regard to an apparent intelligence transgression and related irregular, dysfunctional, illegal, covert or at least dubious activity. Transgression can refer to a range of things, such as the violation of law, corruption, the abuse of public office, incompetence, etc.

Intelligence scandals and accountability

From the perspective of intelligence accountability, an intelligence scandal or failure has been described as a shock or alarm for legislative oversight, which then needs to shift from low-intensity control to a ‘firefighting’ type of control over services. To reach an alarm or shock level, an allegation of intelligence wrongdoing or failure would need to have sustained coverage in leading newspapers for several weeks with at least a few front-page stories.¹² This means that intelligence scandals also develop from the complex interrelationship between media and intelligence services: on one hand, the media can be used by intelligence services for OSINT and even for information operations¹³ while, on the other hand, the media is a chief accountability enforcer and such scandalous shocks act as a clear stimulus for intelligence accountability and reform. According to one study from the United States, such intelligence alarms appeared every 7.5 years on average between 1941 and 2003.¹⁴

Understanding intelligence scandals and their characteristics is important for ensuring the accountability and oversight of services. Accountability has become one of the key analytical themes in intelligence studies and in media reporting, leading to calls for scholars in democratic societies to increase their focus on incidents of scandal and failure by secret agencies.¹⁵ The study of intelligence scandals thus plays a role in attempts by democracies to balance effective secret intelligence activities with democratic values and security demands. In fact, intelligence scandals emerge in the ‘oxymoronic’ grey area of ‘democratic intelligence’ where transparent decision-making and related acceptance of responsibility clash with the secrecy that pervades intelligence services.¹⁶ Intelligence scandals also contribute to or play a role in the ‘accountability forum’ in modern democracies, which Hillebrand has defined as an institution to which actors explain and justify their actions, which ensures their responsibility and may lead to them facing sanctions.¹⁷ Studying intelligence scandals will also help close the existing accountability gap by improving our understanding of the level of quality that current accountability systems are actually achieving¹⁸ and how, in reality, plausible deniability in covert actions undermines accountability.¹⁹ One can say that intelligence scandals play an important role in protecting intelligence services from both political abuse by politicians and the risk of a state being created within the state, accountable to no one.²⁰

Relationship with similar concepts

A question emerges about the relationship of the intelligence scandal concept to certain other cognate and equally challenging concepts, such as ‘policy failure’ or ‘fiasco’. Public policy literature on policy failures defines a policy failure as a situation where a particular policy does not fundamentally achieve its goals and opposition is great and/or support is virtually non-existent. Policy can fail as a process, as a programme, or politically. There are also multiple standards of failure like failure to achieve the goals of government, failure to benefit particular interest groups, to produce benefits greater than costs, to improve the previous situation, etc.²¹ In intelligence studies, we typically use the term intelligence failure to reflect failures in the collection process, of communication, of bureaucratic structure and behaviour, of estimation and analysis, of warning, of leadership and policy or of judgment.²² Policy failures are the reverse of policy success and can be the result of intention, while some arise inadvertently.²³ Intelligence failures are frequently inadvertent, while intelligence scandals are usually the result of intentional actions.²⁴ Intelligence scandals can develop from intelligence policy failures, but they have more in common with the existing policy fiasco concept. The latter was defined by Bovens and t’Hart as a negative event perceived by a socially and politically significant group of people in the community to be at least partly caused by avoidable and blameworthy failures of public policymakers.²⁵ A policy fiasco is a more pejorative term than policy failure since it is used to give a powerful negative label. Fiascos do not just happen; they are socially constructed in the evaluation process, declared and argued over in labelling processes that are not necessarily evidence-based. A fiasco is the result of a two-dimensional assessment by the stakeholders and observers or critics of the programmatic success (the world of facts) and political success (world of impressions). We can safely argue that (intelligence) scandals share complexity, symbolism and negativity with other related concepts, such as ‘crisis’, ‘disaster’ and ‘fiasco’.²⁶ This also means that many (but not all) intelligence policy failures can develop into intelligence policy fiascos and scandals in a very specific battle of narratives. Cormac and Daddow have applied this to the covert action by the UK in Libya and found that secrecy can easily prevent apparent failures from developing into fiascos and that stakeholders have a chance to prevent this development by seriously engaging in a frame contestation process.²⁷

Types of intelligence scandal

In this section, we offer a typology of intelligence scandals. The literature on political scandals distinguishes different types of scandals, such as financial, sexual or political.²⁸ An intelligence scandal is a particular form of political scandal. Political scandals are related to the making or implementing of various policies. While all intelligence scandals are political scandals, not every political scandal is an intelligence scandal. If a political scandal involves an intelligence service, the disclosure of certain covert intelligence activity, an intelligence transgression, etc., in our concept, it then becomes an intelligence scandal.

According to Thompson, intelligence scandals have two types: (1) a ‘dirty tricks scandal’ refers to a situation where secrecy and limited accountability can serve to cover for roguery and wrongdoing on the part of security and intelligence personnel; and (2) a counter-intelligence or spy scandal related to the existence of a spy. The latter exposes treachery, an act of treason by a double agent, the betrayal of trust, and calls into question the competence of the security services themselves.²⁹ Still, this binary categorization of intelligence scandals is not comprehensive enough and can be improved by considering the typical intelligence modus operandi described in the general intelligence literature³⁰ (i.e., collection, analysis, counter-intelligence and covert operations) and by looking at various intelligence scandals in practice. Based on this, we propose the following typology of intelligence scandals:

• Intelligence collection scandals involve the disclosure of HUMINT or TECHINT collection operations and related tradecraft. Intelligence services typically collect secret information abroad by clandestinely engaging human and technical tools or resources. These activities are usually legal from the perspective of the home country but illegal in the foreign target countries. The disclosure of such operations and associated facts will create an intelligence scandal in both the home and target countries. These operations will be especially problematic for the public of the home country if conducted against (a large number of) the domestic population. Examples include the following:

  • the uncovering of a secret stone planted by the British located in a park in Moscow and used to transfer messages between British spies and their sources (2006).^.31

  • the revelation of the Italian military intelligence service’s illegal wiretapping of some 5,000 people in politics, business and justice in the country (2006).³²

• Intelligence analytical scandals refer to the uncovered failure to predict a specific course of action, a surprise attack or the serious misjudgement of a threat (e.g., underestimating or overestimating it, mirror-imaging, cognitive rigidity, subordination to politics, etc.) or a similar analytical problem. Such scandals basically involve incompetence, analytical mistakes, systemic problems, etc. Examples include the following:

  • the inability of the US intelligence services to predict and work together to prevent the surprise terrorist attack on September 11 in 2001.³³

  • the British and US scandal related to WMD in Iraq after intelligence on the existence of WMD in Iraq was used to justify the 2003 invasion (2004).³⁴

• Intelligence consumption scandals are relevant because practice shows that, despite all the theory on objective intelligence assessments and distance between actors, the relationship between policymakers and intelligence services clearly is problematic and entails considerable potential for scandals. As Lowenthal argues, in principle, both actors want the same thing (a successful national security policy), but in practice, policymakers focus on the advancement of their agenda and can ignore intelligence.³⁵ Low policymaker receptivity was also confirmed in cases where the intelligence community produces too abstract instead of more actionable tactical assessments.³⁶ Rovner explored this relationship in his book with the telling title Fixing the Facts and found several pathologies in intelligence–policy relations: neglect (policymakers ignore intelligence that undermines their objectives or intelligence service avoids contact with policymakers), excessive harmony (mutual satisfaction leads to a shared tunnel vision) and politicization (taking various forms including direct manipulation of intelligence by policymakers, indirect manipulation by sending tacit signals, embedded widely held assumptions in intelligence assessments, intelligence estimates that publicly undermine policy decisions, individual or institutional parochialism where analysts or institutions tailor their assessments for personal gain or organizational interests, partisan intelligence where political parties use intelligence for partisan gain and scapegoating intelligence by politicians when it does not support policy). History offers numerous examples of politicization, such as the following:

  • pressures by the Nixon Administration on analysts to produce more ominous estimates in relation to the Soviet threat (early 1970s),³⁷ and

  • pressures on analysts by the US and British administrations in relation to the threat of WMD from Iraq (2002–2003).³⁸

• Intelligence covert action scandals normally emerge after the uncovering of the covert operation of a country’s intelligence service abroad or a foreign covert operation in the home country. Covert operations typically involve an intelligence service secretly working to influence the behaviour of a foreign government, society, public opinion, or certain events. These operations are controversial from the home and foreign perspectives, and questions about their legality and authorization instantly emerge. Surreptitiously influencing perceptions, behaviour or policies may involve providing secret support to a friendly government, influencing the perceptions of foreign governments and entire societies (through use of agents of influence, disinformation campaigns or unattributed propaganda, forged documents, etc.), support to friendly political groups, including para-military organizations, terrorists and criminals, by non-violent or violent means, including assassinations. Examples include the following:

  • uncovered secret operation against the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand by French intelligence agents (1985).³⁹

  • the uncovered Russian intelligence involvement in the assassination by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who had defected to the UK and cooperated with MI6 (2006).⁴⁰

• Counterintelligence scandals emerge due to the revelation of a foreign spy at home or a country’s own spy abroad, including disclosures of a double agent. Counterintelligence refers to protecting the country against the hostile actions of foreign intelligence services. In these scandals, the efficiency of the domestic service and its counterintelligence activity is instantly questioned by the revealed security breaches of an uncovered agent. Examples include the following:

  • the uncovering of Aldrich Ames who acted as a spy inside the CIA for Russia (1994)⁴¹ and Robert Hansen who spied inside the FBI for Russia (2001).⁴²

  • the uncovering of the high official in the Estonian MOD, Herman Simm, who spied for Russia and revealed many NATO and EU secret documents (2008).⁴³

• Intelligence corruption scandals refer to the revelation of corrupt activities by members of intelligence services. Put simply, these individuals place their private interest above the national interest and, when taking more complex forms, one can observe situations of ‘networked state capture’ based on a corrupt, informal and concealed nexus among organized crime, business, politics, the security services (intelligence, police, military) and the judiciary.⁴⁴ Corruption and crime go hand in hand in these scandals, and agents of capture can be caught using various means, such as bribes, threats, blackmail, the provision of benefits, violence, intimidation, free-riding, lobbying, etc. Examples here include the following:

  • the corrupt procurement of surveillance equipment in North Macedonia (2016),⁴⁵ and

  • the case of corruption in the US intelligence contracting process involving the Republican congressman Duke Cunningham who had received bribes from the intelligence contractor MZM Inc. in order to gain more business contracts with the Pentagon and CIA (2006).⁴⁶

• Many observers might consider the unauthorized disclosure of secret documents (e.g., as published in the media, provided by a whistle-blower, etc.) as a special category of intelligence scandal. It is true that a leaked secret intelligence document creates an intelligence scandal, but intentionally leaking or unintentionally disclosing a secret will in itself also frequently develop into one of the above categories. We therefore consider this category to be a generic, cross-type intelligence scandal. Examples include the following:

  • Edward Snowden’s document leaks showing extensive Internet and telephone surveillance by the NSA and GCHQ (2013).⁴⁷

  • Chelsea (Bradley) Manning’s disclosure to WikiLeaks of nearly 750,000 classified or otherwise sensitive military and diplomatic documents about Afghanistan, Iraq and other sensitive operations (2010).⁴⁸

It must be stressed that all of the above-mentioned intelligence scandal types might be linked; i.e., one intelligence scandal can possess the characteristics of several types at once or it can move from one dominant type to another. Further comparative work based on a multitude of cases is needed to refine this classification.

Analytical model for assessing intelligence scandals

In this section, we aim to identify key variables relevant for assessing any intelligence scandal. These variables are to account for the general characteristics of typical intelligence scandals and should enable researchers to study intelligence scandals in different cases and compare them.

The quest for indicators or variables in comparative studies of scandals has not been very productive. In the 1980s, Markovits and Silverstein noted there was hardly any comparative research on scandals that attempted to understand them in a broader context.⁴⁹ Since then, several authors have attempted this. Adut developed a general theory and a general model of scandal,⁵⁰ and Thompson developed a social theory of the conditions and consequences of a scandal.⁵¹ Neckel tried to develop a comparative analytical framework for the analysis of political scandals based on comparable causes, characteristics, meanings and functions.⁵² Others established that scandals are common in countries with dissimilar political trajectories and practices, economic standards, political cultures, media systems and levels of corruption.⁵³ The only author to explicitly try to define the variables in intelligence scandals is Yanai. He created a comparative framework for analysing ‘political affairs’ with an intelligence character based on the variables related to the making of the affair, its attributes and its impact on the democratic polity (e.g., level of interruption of the routine functioning of the political institutions, level of irregular political participation and mobilization, level of violence, duration of the political affair or length of time required to resolve the crisis, extent of divisiveness, degree of acceptability of a solution to the affair and impacts of the affair). He tested it on three intelligence cases: the Dreyfus, Lavon and Watergate affairs.⁵⁴

Our approach in this paper is focused on identifying the key variables of intelligence scandals derived from a typical intelligence scandal and by relying on the literature on political scandals. Figure 1 shows seven identified variables and key indicators that together constitute an anatomy of intelligence scandals.

Figure 1. An anatomy of intelligence scandals.

1. Intelligence Transgressions Disclosed to the Public. Analysts of intelligence scandals should clearly describe what was wrong with the activities of the main actors. Markovits and Silverstein stressed that the defining feature of political scandals stems from the nature of the transgression. A political scandal involves a violation of due process (the legally binding rules and procedures that govern the exercise of political power).⁵⁵ This means that transgression in intelligence scandals involves the violation of some values and norms (mostly likely laws). Transgression in scandals can frequently be linked to corruption by the holders of power, intelligence power in our case. Tumber and Waisbord stressed that the analysis of a scandal usually overlaps with (analysis of) corruption and that the proximity between these two issues is no coincidence. Corruption is an abuse of public office for private ends, and scandals result from the publication of information about corruption.⁵⁶

2. Relevant context of the scandal and its causes. Intelligence scandals always occur in a certain political and security context. They might be a result of this context. An intelligence scandal is a form of power scandal, and its context relates to the international and domestic competitive environment in which basic intelligence functions (intelligence gathering, counter-intelligence and covert operations) are carried out.

3. Immediate triggers of the scandal. An intelligence scandal is triggered when hidden forms of intelligence power are suddenly revealed in the public domain, creating a public moral outrage. The very act of public disclosure and the first act of mediatization of secret transgressions is the start of the scandal. Transgressions may be identified by journalists, a government agency, including an intelligence service, or might leak from the service or be shared by a whistle-blower. We should note that this first publicization often already includes the first public reactions in the way the information is presented. Easley indicated that populations care more about domestic intelligence transgressions than overseas transgressions made by national intelligence services.⁵⁷

4. The key actors involved and a description of their role. Key actors included in a scandal belong to a small circle of active participants: the transgressor(s) and the immediate victims. The third party is the ‘purifier’, which ensures that the event ‘takes off’ (frequently a media organization or investigative committee, etc.).⁵⁸ Other classifications identify participants, such as police and law enforcement, legal and judicial systems, specific individuals and interest groups (seeking to use the scandal as a way of discrediting opponents), media organizations which might pursue the scandal for financial interests, political objectives, competitive rivalry, etc.⁵⁹ Transgressors can be also intelligence contracting companies. We include them based on the work of Shorrock, who importantly redefined the intelligence system as an intelligence–industrial complex filled with contractors, which have almost identical tasks to the state intelligence services (e.g., running spy networks outside embassies, conducting intelligence analysis, signals intelligence collection, covert operations and interrogation of enemy prisoners).⁶⁰ This means that transgressions by intelligence contractors (and not only intelligence services) may lead to an intelligence scandal.

5. Actors’ defences. When disclosed, transgressions create strong reactions and emotions among the public. The surprised public will likely disapprove of the transgression that has come to light and require sanctions. On a larger scale, an intelligence scandal is about the solidification of norms, while on a personal or institutional scale, it is about reputation and trust in the intelligence services and associated individuals. Thompson noted that actors will be involved in struggles of acts/speech-acts with outcomes, such as rejecting the allegations, public confession or committing ‘second-order transgressions’ (subsequent actions aimed at concealing and covering up the offence).⁶¹ The attempt to cover up a transgression may involve further transgressions such as deception, obstruction, false denials and straight-out lies. Scandals also cause ‘personal contamination,’ and repair will be necessary for the person to decontaminate. Associative contamination refers to contamination also of all those associated with the offenders.⁶² Actors will also attempt to get the story off the front page and use the methods of perception management.⁶³

6. Time dynamics. Intelligence scandals generally follow the same temporal and sequential structure as all other scandal types, involving a pre-scandal phase, scandal phase with culmination, and the aftermath or termination. Their duration is actually a function of public interest and will vary among cases. Markovits and Silverstein stressed that scandals capture the public’s attention for brief periods as they seem momentarily important, but in the long run, they become irrelevant, except for their impact, which may have a considerable duration.⁶⁴ Tumber and Waisbord found that scandals have a brief existence due to the media’s short-attention span and the fact that other scandals will emerge and grab attention.⁶⁵

7. Consequences of intelligence scandals. Intelligence scandals can bring several direct and indirect, short- and long-term consequences. They commonly erode regard, reputation and trust in individuals and in government institutions.⁶⁶ The entire political system’s legitimacy might be called into question,⁶⁷ and the political process could be brought to a standstill until the scandal is resolved.⁶⁸ They can reveal gross incompetence, destroy the careers and reputations of the individuals involved, lead to criminal prosecutions, indictments, resignations, sackings, humiliation, shame, conviction with a jail sentence, censure, forfeit, admonition, a fine, an apology, a dismissal, confession, settlement and mixes of these outcomes.⁶⁹ On the other hand, intelligence scandals can also be an opportunity for change. The exposure of a scandal may indicate that the system is working⁷⁰ and provide an opportunity to reaffirm the social order. A Durkheimian understanding of political scandal views such transgressions as not only normal in everyday life but as necessary for any social order and the related integration of society. Scandals create the public ritual of discussion, investigation and punishment, which ultimately serves to reinforce the primacy of those shared norms and values.⁷¹

A case study of intelligence scandals in North Macedonia

In the empirical part of the article, we test our analytical model on the case of North Macedonia, a small European country in transition to a democratic political system and a free market economy. North Macedonia managed to avoid a major military conflict after the break-up of Yugoslavia, although its political stability, sovereignty and economic performance remain relatively fragile. Justification of selection of this country stems from the fact that such a transition country in a troubled geographical region offers plenty of material in terms of transgressions and their publicization in both local and foreign languages. From the methodological perspective, this case may be considered an ‘extreme’ example among a larger set of potential cases.

We investigated the six biggest intelligence scandals in North Macedonia between 1995 and 2020. Two of these are related to illegal wiretapping (belonging to the intelligence collection scandal type), one to the corrupt procurement of surveillance equipment (intelligence corruption scandal), one to an attempt to assassinate the Macedonian President (intelligence analytical scandal and covert action scandal), while the last two scandals related to transgressions in the post-9/11 global War on Terror (intelligence covert action scandals). These cases attracted the greatest public attention, significant media interest and detailed investigations not only in North Macedonia but also internationally.

It is important that these are mature cases which contain all the elements needed to fill our research model. Some smaller intelligence scandals do not offer sufficient data due to the secrecy involved or because they simply did not develop enough. We believe that such an approach, involving one country outside the Anglosphere and six cases of intelligence scandals, provides a basis for conducting new intra-country comparisons and subsequent cross-country comparative research of more and less democratic countries. The existing research indirectly suggests that more intelligence scandals will take place in more democratic countries just as more political scandals take place in more democratic countries due to more institutionalized means of exposure of power.⁷² Yet, this does not mean that intelligence scandals do not also take place in less democratic countries. More important for the use of our model than the frequency of intelligence scandals is actually the level of development of each scandal included. The model will work if the intelligence scandals included offer sufficient material to fill its variables.

Table 1 presents a synthetic review of this paper’s findings on these cases according to the variables from our model (six cases according to seven variables).

Table 1. Comparative and synthetic overview of intelligence scandals in North Macedonia (six cases according to seven variables).

Intelligence scandals by variables	Illegal wiretapping scandal (‘The Big Ear’), 2001–2013	Illegal and indiscriminate wiretapping scandal (‘Target-Fortress’), 2015–2021	Corrupt procurement of surveillance equipment, 2016–2021	Assassination attempt on the President of North Macedonia, 1995-	Abduction, torture and extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri, 2005-	Assassination of seven innocent immigrants portrayed as terrorists, 2002–2005
Basic intelligence transgression	- abuse of public office and institutional authority - unauthorized and illegal wiretapping of a large number (190) of important persons, no court orders	- abuse of public office and institutional authority - unauthorized and illegal wiretapping of more than 20,000 important persons, no court orders, abuse of time limitations of court orders	- violation of public procurement procedure for buying FinFisher software - serious misuse of public funds for personal gain, use of a proxy company for the procurement	- not entirely clear: it moves between failure to prevent the assassination attempt to potential cooperation in organizing and executing the attack	- abduction of an innocent suspect and holding him in captivity without lawyers - torturing and extraordinary rendition of an innocent person	- capturing, misusing and intentionally killing a group of illegal immigrants later framed/portrayed as dangerous terrorists
Context and causes	- political competition: recent change of government - security: right before the 2001 insurgency by ethnic Albanians	- political competition: oppositional political party looks for cases of corruption and violation of freedoms	- international debate on software-related violation of human rights - diminished public trust in the ruling VMRO-DMPNE party - civil and parliamentarian control	- political external and internal: problems with neighbouring countries combined with motives to create another crisis and destabilize the country	- the US War on Terror and practices to find and interrogate suspects - motive to show Macedonia’s contribution and obtain US support in the process of joining NATO	- the US War on Terror in combination with the uprising of ethnic Albanians - motive to increase public support for the key political figure (Minister of Interior) and also support from the USA
Triggers	- transcripts of conversations disclosed at a press conference by opposition party leader - documents likely provided by a whistle-blower from the service	- transcripts of conversations disclosed at a press conference by opposition party leader - documents likely provided by a whistle-blower from the service	- press conference of the Macedonian Special Public Prosecutor who found indications of corruption	- triggered by the event itself, the related media reporting and the official police statement	- Khalid El-Masri discloses his story in the Los Angeles Times and accuses both the Macedonian Intelligence Service and the CIA of mistreatment	- the BBC reports the victims were illegal immigrants - Macedonian state television reports that the victims were framed as terrorists and murdered in an ambush close to the US embassy
Key actors and their role	- Minister of Interior from VMRO-DMPNE. - Head of the sector in the Counterintel. Bureau - the immediate victims: 190 citizens who were under surveillance	- Prime Minister - Counterintelligence Bureau’s Head - former Head of the Fifth Directorate of the Ministry of Interior - counterintel. employee - former Minister of Interior -former Head of the Counterintel. Cabinet	- Head of Security and Counterintel. Bureau, Head of its Cabinet, - Head of the Fifth Directorate of the Ministry of Interior - an employee of the ministry - director of the company Finzi DOOEL Skopje	- Macedonian Liberation Army - Bulgarian company ‘Multigroup’, the Yugoslav Counterintel. service - Minister of the Interior - Prime Minister	- the victim Khalid El-Masri - the Macedonian intelligence service, the Macedonian Government - the CIA	- the Minister of the Interior - six senior members of the Macedonian intelligence and police
Actors’ defences	rejections and counter-accusations	rejections and redirecting attention to foreign intelligence services	rejecting all accusations	rejecting allegations and redirecting attention to other potential culprits	initial rejections, official apology of the Macedonian government for the mistreatment	lies, reinterpretations and rejections
Time dynamics	2001–2013	2015–2021	2016–2021	1995-	2005–	2002–2005
Consequences	- investigation by Public Prosecutor - Parliamentary inquiry - resignation by a Minister of the Interior and Head of the exposed sector - amendment to the Constitution - impact on election results - ruling of the European Court of Human Rights - Presidential pardons	- major political crisis and public protests nationwide - numerous resignations - a series of crisis negotiations among political parties brokered by the EU and the USA - a group of EC rule-of-law experts issues the Priebe report - legal and structural reforms of intelligence services - court process and sentences - fleeing of some accused persons - Presidential pardons	- court process - resignation - assassination - fleeing by one defendant	- investigation by the Ministry of Interior and foreign intelligence services - parliamentary investigation - resignation of the then Minister of the Interior - structural intelligence reforms - assassinations	- court process in North Macedonia - court process in front of the European Court of Human Rights and its ruling - resolution by the European Parliament - official apology issued by the Macedonian government	- criminal investigation and court process - Parliament took away the Minister of Interior’s immunity - fleeing of the main suspect and request for extradition - pardon of suspects by the President - a worsening of relations with Pakistan

The structure of the Macedonian intelligence system has been evolving during the period covered in our research (1995–2021). After declaring independence in 1991, Macedonia merged the functions of external and internal intelligence and counterintelligence in the State Security Service within the Ministry of the Interior. The Military Security and Intelligence Service was also established at the new Ministry of Defence. Following the assassination attempt on the Macedonian President in 1995, the State Security Service was abolished with two new services appearing in its place: the Intelligence Agency as an independent governmental body responsible for external threats (still operating today) and the Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence, which remained part of the Ministry of the Interior, responsible for internal threats. As a consequence of the country’s huge wiretapping scandal (‘Target-Fortress’), in 2019 the National Security Agency was established as the main governmental internal intelligence agency to replace the Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence at the Ministry of the Interior.

Illegal wiretapping scandal (‘The big ear’), 2001–2013

This scandal was triggered on 18 January 2001 at a press conference organized by the leader of the opposition party, the Social Democratic Union (SDSM). He presented transcripts of taped conversations by the Counterintelligence Bureau at the Ministry of the Interior of more than 190 people, stating the transcripts reflected the stagnation of democracy, counterfeiting, murder and other criminal acts in the country. According to sources, an employee of the Macedonian Counterintelligence Bureau had probably found and leaked the conversation transcripts.⁷³

The basic intelligence transgression disclosed to the public was the misuse of public office and institutional authority for private purposes that had occurred at the Ministry of the Interior and its Counterintelligence Bureau (Sector for Operations and Application of Operational Techniques) between September and December 2000. These transcripts revealed the unauthorized surveillance of conversations of opposition and government politicians, journalists, diplomats, members of political parties, senior government officials, spouses, the President of the Republic and their friends. These subjects were not involved in any acts of terrorism, espionage or destruction of North Macedonia’s democratic institutions (all being sufficient reasons for approving surveillance).⁷⁴

There was a strong competitive political and even security context to this transgression and its publicization. The Ministry of the Interior was in the hands of the ruling nationalist party, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (hereinafter VMRO-DPMNE) between 1998 and 2002. In a very competitive political environment, the opposition wanted to expose the misconduct of the government. The Minister of the Interior allegedly passed on some information to the Bulgarian and Albanian intelligence services and was even in contact with the notorious Serbian Zemun Clan, one of the most notorious regional criminal organizations of the time.⁷⁵ Finally, this scandal was made public just before a violent uprising by the Albanian ethnic group in 2001 and its militant Albanian National Liberation Army.

The key actors involved in this scandal were the Minister of the Interior of the VMRO-DMPNE and her close associate, the head of the Sector for Operations and Application of the Operational Technique in the Counterintelligence Bureau. Both actors allegedly jointly defined the targets, the method and extent of their surveillance, and then the latter issued an order to the Device Connection Service with specified telephone numbers of their targets. Everything else was performed automatically in conjunction with the equipment installed by Macedonian Telekom.⁷⁶ Actors’ defences were based on rejections and counter-accusations. The Minister of the Interior stated she had never issued a decision to conduct surveillance for political or ideological reasons of the persons named in the scandal and that it was actually the previous government led by SDSM, which had illegally surveilled members of her party. She also accused the opposition party of having instrumentalized and misused the old ‘socialist’ cadre in the ministry for its own purposes, leaking state secrets, and destroying the existing state security system.⁷⁷

The numerous consequences of this scandal range from an investigation by the Public Prosecutor, a Parliamentary inquiry, the tarnished reputation of officials in power, the lowering of public trust through to the resignation of the Minister of the Interior and the head of the mentioned sector, an amendment to the Constitution, an influence on election results and a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. The reputation of the Minister of the Interior, then one of the most important politicians in power, was seriously diminished, leading to her resignation. She was immediately appointed as head of the Macedonian Intelligence Agency. The office of the Public Prosecutor in Skopje started an investigation, and 70 questioned witnesses (mostly victims of the eavesdropping) confirmed the authenticity of the transcripts. In February 2001, a Parliamentary inquiry was started by the Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms but was unsuccessful because the police report submitted to the Parliament stated that no evidential documents related to the eavesdropping could be found. In April 2002, a charge was brought before the court against the Minister of the Interior as the first defendant and her close associate as the second. In April 2003, the President of North Macedonia pardoned both actors from any further prosecution.⁷⁸ This decision reduced public trust in the government and confirmed public perceptions about the impunity of politicians in North Macedonia.⁷⁹ Due to this scandal, Article 17 of the Constitution was amended by specifying that the interception of telephone conversations is only allowed upon authorization by an investigating judge and related court.⁸⁰ In the following elections, the opposition party SDSM came to power partly also due to this scandal. In 2006, 13 journalists who were among the victims filed a lawsuit against North Macedonia in front of the European Court of Human Rights, and in 2013, they won their case, each being awarded EUR 6,000 in damages.⁸¹ This scandal was relatively short, with the first phase occurring between 2001 and 2004 and the second phase in front of the European court in 2013.

Illegal and indiscriminate wiretapping scandal (‘Target-fortress’), 2015–2021

The second wiretapping scandal was triggered at a press conference in February 2015 by the leader of the opposition SDSM. He disclosed 36 packages of recordings of telephone conversations of more than 20,000 individuals, including the former prime minister, government ministers and senior officials, mayors, deputies, the Parliamentary Speaker, opposition leaders, judges, prosecutor, journalists, editors and media owners. He stressed that this eavesdropping could not have occurred without the involvement of the State Security, Counterintelligence Bureau and mobile operators. When asked who had provided him with the taped material, he replied brave people within the secret services.⁸² The main transgressions in this scandal were the abuse of public office and misuse of institutional capacity for private purposes that occurred in the Ministry of the Interior and its Counterintelligence Bureau between 2008 and 2015. The perpetrators in the counterintelligence office had illegally monitored three systems for tapping communications, no court orders were issued for tapping 4,286 telephone numbers, at least 5,827 telephone numbers were tapped before court orders were issued and after the validity of those orders had expired.⁸³ The problem was that the Counterintelligence Service was able to monitor communications with all three operators whether or not a court order had been issued.⁸⁴

The context of this scandal was also a strongly competitive internal political environment. During the time of the illegal wiretapping, the leading party VMRO-DMPNE was firmly in power. The opposition parties had been accusing the government of corruption and restricting media freedoms. By the end of 2014, the leader of the opposition SDSM had several times announced that he would be publishing explosive details that would shake up the reputation of VMRO-DPMNE.⁸⁵

The key actors involved in the scandal were the head of the Counterintelligence Bureau, the former head of the Counterintelligence cabinet, the former head of the Fifth Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior, a Counterintelligence employee and a former Interior Minister. The actors defended themselves by rejecting all accusations and redirecting attention to foreign intelligence services. First, the governing VMRO-DPMNE party issued a press release rejecting the accusations, stating that the scandal was created to help the opposition at the early parliamentary elections. The party did not deny the existence of the taped conversations but denied it had anything to do with them, claiming the tapping of the conversations was carried out by foreign secret services and that the recordings had been selectively altered, edited, cut out or inserted.⁸⁶

The consequences of this scandal are numerous. The publication of the illegally recorded conversations led to a major political crisis and saw thousands of citizens and activists across the nation go out and protest, demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation and that of his cabinet. A series of tough crisis negotiations among political parties brokered by the EU and the USA commenced and led to the formation of a transitional government to prepare for the primaries and the Prime Minister’s resignation from office at the start of 2016. The European Commission set up a group of independent rule-of-law experts to analyse the situation and make recommendations to resolve the crisis. The resulting ‘Priebe Report’ was recommended and was followed by several legal and structural reforms. In 2019, the Intelligence Service, the Security Agency and Counterintelligence Directorate within the Ministry of the Interior were abolished and a new autonomous National Security Agency was established. In addition, a new Operational-Technical Agency (OTA) was set up to prevent any abuse of the measure of the interception of citizens’ electronic communications.⁸⁷ All key actors, such as the Minister of the Interior, the Head of Security and Counterintelligence Service and several senior government ministers, also resigned.⁸⁸ The court process commenced, and 12 people were accused of being responsible for this transgression, while two defendants – the former head of the Fifth Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior and the mentioned Counterintelligence employee – fled to Greece to avoid imprisonment.⁸⁹ Greece refused to extradite them to North Macedonia, citing the amnesty granted by President Gjorgje Ivanov. They were then sentenced in absentia. In April 2016, the then President granted a full pardon to members of the political establishment who had faced corruption allegations after the wiretapping material had been leaked.⁹⁰ This pardon was then revoked. In early 2021, the court sentenced 12 people to prison terms ranging from 2 years to 15 years. During the trial, 123 witnesses were questioned, 887 evidentiary materials submitted, and 5 forensic evaluations organized.⁹¹ The scandal started in 2015 and probably ended with this verdict.

Corrupt procurement of surveillance equipment, 2016–2021

This scandal developed from the surveillance in the previous case and is related to the corrupt purchase of surveillance software technology called FinFisher. This is very sophisticated, intrusive and easy-to-use spy software⁹² used in 32 countries and sold by the British company Gamma International. The software is normally only sold to governments.⁹³ The scandal’s immediate trigger was once again a press conference, but this time one held by the Macedonian Special Public Prosecutor’s Office in September 2016. The public prosecutor had explored the evidence from transcripts of conversations among some high-ranking counter-intelligence officials and found a transgression in the form of serious misuse of funds from the budget of North Macedonia for personal gain. The story began in 2010 when senior officers of the Security Service and Counterintelligence Bureau went to the UK to purchase this equipment. Instead of concluding a direct contract with the British company, they used a proxy company, Finzi DOOEL Skopje, which imported the equipment for a total amount of EUR 1,452,403 and then sold it to the Ministry of the Interior for EUR 2,021,028.⁹⁴ Moreover, they corruptly agreed on several further appendices to the contract to procure additional spy equipment and for its maintenance, damaging the state budget by a total of around EUR 1 million.⁹⁵

The context of this scandal can be found in the ongoing international debate on the violation of human rights by the use of FinFisher and in the context of the diminished trust in Macedonia in VMRO-DMPNE, the ruling party at the time. In 2013, a report by the Citizen Lab research group at the University of Toronto announced that North Macedonia was in the group of countries that had purchased this controversial spyware.⁹⁶ The Macedonian NOVATV received information about the purchase of this software in 2011 and asked whether it had been bought through the Ministry of the Interior. Both the ministry and the government refused to comment, while members of the Parliamentary Commission for the Supervision of Security Services noted that under the law, there was no possibility for this equipment to be procured by any institution other than the Ministry of the Interior.⁹⁷

The key actors involved are the head of the Security and Counterintelligence Bureau, the head of its Cabinet, the head of the Fifth Directorate of the Ministry of Interior and an employee of the ministry. Another relevant actor was the director of the company Finzi DOOEL Skopje. All governmental actors defended themselves by rejecting all of the accusations levelled against them. The first defendant stated the accusations made at the press conference were completely fabricated and false, and he had not caused any damage to the budget nor obtained any material benefit.⁹⁸ The director of Finzi DOOEL was one of the few people to voluntarily speak to the Special Prosecution and was listed as a witness.

Consequences of this scandal stretch from initiation of the court process, to resignation, assassination, court sentence for four people to prison terms ranging from 5 years to 15 years and fleeing by one defendant. The court witness, the company director, who had cooperated with the Special Prosecution, was found dead, shot in the chest in his apartment in central Skopje in April 2016. Shots had previously been fired into a van parked in front of his building.⁹⁹ The Security and Counterintelligence Service Director resigned from his position.¹⁰⁰ In June 2017, four people were charged with the crime of ‘abuse of official position’ under Article 353 of the Criminal Code.¹⁰¹ In April 2021, they were all sentenced to prison terms of between 5 and 15 years. This is the first instance verdict, and the parties have the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal in Skopje.¹⁰² The head of the Fifth Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior escaped to Greece. The Athens Supreme Court refused to extradite him and he has been tried in absentia.¹⁰³ The timeline of this scandal starts in 2016 and ends in 2021, while the transgression took place from July 2010 to the end of 2012.

Assassination attempt on the President of North Macedonia, 1995-

At 09:50 on 3 October 1995, unknown perpetrators tried to assassinate the President of North Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov. The scandal was triggered by the event itself, related media reporting and the official police statement on the event. The basic intelligence transgression in this case is not entirely clear: it moves between the failure to prevent the event to the potential collaboration of certain individuals in organizing and executing the attack on the most protected person in the country. A car bomb exploded in front of the Bristol Hotel in Skopje when the President’s official car was passing by on its way to the Parliament. The bomb was planted in a Citroen AMI 8, detonated by a remote control and killed the President’s driver, three bystanders and also wounded the President.

The relevant context of this scandal includes external problems and internal political rivalry. The President was a key actor in improving relations with Greece (2 months earlier, the Greek trade embargo on products from North Macedonia was lifted, while the Interim Accord for the Normalization of Relations with Greece was signed at the United Nations) and deteriorating relations with Serbia. A day before the assassination attempt, the President held a meeting with Serbian President Milosevic at which he had rejected the proposal for a customs union between the two states. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not recognize Macedonia’s independence at that time due to border disputes and its solidarity with Greece.¹⁰⁴ Several Macedonian politicians (the then Prime Minister and Interior Minister) pointed out that the most likely motive behind this assassination attempt was to destabilize the country, creating further crisis, chaos and stagnation on the road to Euro-Atlantic integration.

Since the perpetrators were (and still are) unknown, the key actors involved were several publicly accused persons or institutions, yet no reliable evidence was found in any of these cases. The first theory exposed the Australian-based organization called the ‘Macedonian Liberation Army’. Then Minister of Interior and some others pointed to a Bulgarian company called ‘Multi-group’, the Yugoslav counterintelligence service and the Bratislava connection.¹⁰⁵ Another allegation was made in 2002 by the then Minister of the Interior, who claimed that the former Interior Minister had paid Macedonian citizens and intelligence officers to carry out the assassination. In 2008, he published a column in which he claimed that someone who was an officer at the Macedonian Counterintelligence directorate had given him information showing the intelligence service’s involvement in the assassination attempt.¹⁰⁶ The Parliamentary Committee formed subsequent to this noted that this person involved was not an intelligence officer and did not further consider the case.¹⁰⁷ In 2018, former Speaker of the Macedonian Assembly between 1991 and 1996 published a book entitled ‘Before the assassination attempt and after’, in which he implied the former minister of the interior and former prime minister had sought to end the term of the then President.¹⁰⁸ All of the named Macedonian actors defended themselves by rejecting the allegations and redirecting attention to other possible culprits. After the Minister of the Interior pointed to the Bulgarian company ‘Multi-group’ as being responsible for the assassination, the company director supposedly committed suicide. The former Minister of the Interior stated in October 2008 that there had been no internal political conspiracy, but he was certain that some people in the intelligence services had been assisting foreign intelligence services. He was personally convinced that ‘the wind for that assassination is blowing from Serbia’. His colleague in office, yet also a political opponent, claimed those behind the assassination should be sought in the military intelligence structures of Serbia.¹⁰⁹

The consequences of this scandal include an investigation by the Ministry of the Interior and certain foreign intelligence services, a parliamentary investigation, the resignation of the Minister of the Interior, the erosion of trust in the intelligence services, structural reforms and assassinations. In 1995, the Ministry of the Interior launched an extensive investigation in cooperation with security services from the USA, Germany and the UK, but without any results. The Minister of the Interior resigned from his position, although the Prime Minister did not accept the resignation.¹¹⁰ This scandal called into question the effectiveness and quality of the work of Macedonia’s security and intelligence services and led to the Macedonian security and intelligence structure being reorganized. The single State Security Service within the Ministry of the Interior was reorganized into two new bodies at the ministry: the Intelligence Agency, and the Security and Counterintelligence Directorate. In the meantime, several secret service employees who witnessed the assassination died. The list includes the bodyguard of the former president who died after giving testimony as a witness. Another agent was found dead near the Ministry of the Interior, while the three police officers in the vehicle behind the presidential car died in unclear circumstances.¹¹¹ In 2008, a parliamentary investigation of the Counterintelligence Directorate began. After examining the evidence and details published in the 2008 column by the former Minister of the Interior, numerous intelligence and police officers were questioned. Soon afterward, the prosecutor suspended this investigation and concluded that the Counterintelligence Directorate had not been involved in the assassination attempt.¹¹² Although this scandal first appeared 25 years ago, it remains unresolved. The scandal has occasionally resurfaced in the media as new materials or statements emerge.¹¹³

A critical observer might ask why this unresolved case with unproven intelligence involvement was selected for our study. The results collected about this case suggest that Macedonian or foreign intelligence services may be considered to be a participant in this transgression in one of three senses: a) the failure by the domestic intelligence service to identify the threat and prevent the event (this would then be an intelligence failure escalating into a scandal); b) the potential involvement of parts of the domestic intelligence services in the assassination attempt upon the order of a high political figure; or c) the potential involvement of a foreign intelligence service in the assassination attempt. None of these scenarios (or any others) was confirmed by the official investigations, yet these options remain on the table and thus were included in this case as intelligence scandal examples.

Abduction, torture and extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri, 2005-

This scandal was triggered in 2005 by its main victim, Khalid El-Masri, after he had been released from US and Macedonian captivity. In the Los Angeles Times, he wrote that Macedonian agents had arrested him while travelling and had detained him for 23 days without allowing him to contact anyone.¹¹⁴ The basic intelligence transgression involves the Macedonian intelligence service and the CIA, which abducted an innocent man, held him in captivity without a lawyer and tortured him. El-Masri was a German citizen who was stopped on the Serbian–Macedonian border on 31 December 2003 on his way from Germany to Skopje to visit his wife. The officials started interrogating him about links with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups due to the similarity of his name with the name of the then suspected terrorist Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was sought for allegedly having been a mentor to the Al-Qaeda Hamburg cell.¹¹⁵ The Macedonian Intelligence Service secretly held and tortured this innocent German citizen in a hotel in Skopje for 23 days. The agents offered him a return to Germany if he signed an acknowledgment that he was a member of Al-Qaeda. Later, he was handed over to a CIA rendition team, which initially held and tortured him at Skopje airport and then transported him to Afghanistan (Salt Pit near Kabul) for further interrogation.¹¹⁶ After 4 months, El-Masri was flown back to Skopje and then to Albania, where he was released and sent by aeroplane to Germany in the same clothes he had worn on his way to Skopje. Upon arriving in Frankfurt, Germany, he appeared untidy and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, probably caused by torture and ill-treatment.¹¹⁷

The relevant context of this scandal is America’s War on Terror and Macedonia’s collaboration with it. The CIA was running a global operation designed to capture and detain individuals deemed to pose a continuing serious threat of violence or death to US citizens and interests or planning terrorist activities.¹¹⁸ Following the end of the insurgency by ethnic Albanians in 2001, North Macedonia was very motivated to participate in America’s War on Terror and to win its support for its NATO membership.¹¹⁹

The main actors involved in this scandal apart from the victim, Khalid El-Masri, are the Macedonian intelligence service, the Macedonian government and the CIA (officers’ specific names are unknown). The alleged perpetrators denied all of the accusations initially, but the Macedonian side was eventually forced to acknowledge its involvement and apologize.¹²⁰ The Government of North Macedonia initially contested the credibility of the findings of the experts with respect to El-Masri’s mental health, arguing that the Macedonian criminal investigation could not be effective due to E-Masri’s delay in filing the proceedings and the fact that he had filed them against an unknown perpetrator. However, in 2018, the North Macedonian Foreign Minister formally apologized to Khalid El-Masri¹²¹ and, in so doing, acknowledged the involvement of Macedonia’s intelligence services.

The consequences of this intelligence scandal stretch from initiation of the court proceedings in North Macedonia and before the European Court of Human Rights, the ruling issued by the latter, a resolution by the European Parliament and an official apology made by the Macedonian Government. This case came to be recognised internationally as an exemplar of extraordinary rendition,¹²² especially after the Open Society Justice Initiative commenced proceedings against North Macedonia in 2009 before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of El-Masri. The European Court ruled that North Macedonia had violated several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered the state to pay compensation of EUR 60,000 to Khalid El-Masri, while Basic Court 2 in Skopje has never resolved the case.¹²³ The European Parliament passed a resolution urging EU member states to clarify suspicions of illegal CIA activities on European territory and called on North Macedonia to find those responsible for the kidnapping. The European Parliament regretted the inaction of the public prosecutor’s office in Skopje and proposed to bring this case onto the European Commission’s agenda when it deals with North Macedonia’s application for EU membership.¹²⁴ In a letter dated 28 March 2018, the Foreign Minister of Macedonia expressed his sincere apology and unreserved regret concerning what he described as inappropriate behaviour of the authorities. However, he said that this was only the first step and that he expected North Macedonia to open a thorough investigation and determine the persons responsible for the case.¹²⁵ The scandal might also be considered to be un-ended, as the official apology issued by the government clearly called for further steps in the investigation.

Assassination of seven innocent immigrants portrayed as terrorists, 2002–2005

In March 2002, six Pakistani citizens and an Indian citizen were killed in a gunfight with police in north of Skopje. The official story was that these men were jihadists and members of a foreign terrorist group who had travelled from Pakistan and planned attacks on vital installations and embassies, especially the US embassy.¹²⁶ The Macedonian authorities foiled their operation. Yet, this official story became challenged, and the scandal was first triggered by a BBC report in 2002 showing that sources inside the government had briefed journalists that they were illegal immigrants attempting to cross North Macedonia on a well-trodden path into Europe.¹²⁷ In May 2004, a report on Macedonian state television quoted a Ministry of the Interior source stating that these seven men were actually framed as terrorists and murdered in an ambush close to the US Embassy in an attempt to prove that North Macedonia was a frontline ally of the USA in its War on Terror.¹²⁸ The basic intelligence transgression in this case refers to capturing, misusing and intentionally killing a group of illegal immigrants, subsequently portrayed as dangerous terrorists.

We identified the relevant external and internal context of the scandal. The incident occurred in March 2002 in the context of an ethnic Albanian uprising in North Macedonia at the end of 2001 and America’s War on Terror. These people were shot by the Lions, an elite special operations tactical unit formed during the 2001 conflict in North Macedonia to counter acts of terrorism and for emergency deployment in rural areas. The ambitious Minister of the Interior became very popular by playing the nationalistic card of dealing with the Albanian problem (i.e., terrorists) and linking this with global counter-terrorist endeavours.¹²⁹ He also hoped to run for president in the 2004 elections. Diplomats, government officials and investigators have suggested that the government had hoped to use the post-9/11 campaign against Al-Qaeda to obtain a freer hand in its internal conflict with the Muslim ethnic Albanians. This linking of internal and external counter-terrorism would also raise North Macedonia’s anti-terrorist profile and lead to greater support from the USA.¹³⁰

The key actors involved in this scandal were the Minister of the Interior, who allegedly conceived of and authorized the idea of trapping and framing these immigrants and six senior members of Macedonia’s intelligence services and police.¹³¹ The Macedonian national intelligence system at the time of this event/scandal comprised three services: the Intelligence Agency of the Republic of Macedonia, the Security and Counterintelligence Administration within the Ministry of the Interior and the Service for Security and Intelligence at the Ministry of Defence. This scandal involved the Ministry of the Interior together with the minister, police service and ministerial Security and Counterintelligence Administration. The actors defended themselves not by rejecting the shooting and deaths but by claiming that the group of people were jihadists who had taken on the special police unit in a gun battle.¹³² The minister rejected the allegations by saying that unidentified American intelligence officers had notified himself and his associates about the alleged Pakistani terrorists.¹³³ However, the American Embassy stated that US personnel had not been aware of any evidence of a specific threat to the Embassy. Craig Ratcliff, spokesperson for NATO in Macedonia, said the international community did not then have a clear picture of whether it was an anti-terrorist operation or something else.¹³⁴

This case also had a broad range of consequences, such as tarnishing the reputation of a very important politician (the Minister of the Interior) and the government, a criminal investigation, court proceedings, Parliament taking away the Minister of the Interior’s immunity, the fleeing of the primary suspect, a request for extradition, a presidential pardon of suspects and the worsening of relations with Pakistan. In December 2002, the Macedonian consulate in Pakistan was set on fire and three people were killed as a sign of retaliation.¹³⁵ A criminal investigation was started in 2002 against seven persons responsible, including the minister, and court proceedings commenced.¹³⁶ However, all defendants were released from further prosecution in April 2005, and their detention was suspended after the court decided they were not guilty and after the president of state pardoned the first defendant.¹³⁷ In the meantime, the Macedonian parliament took away the immunity of the primary suspect and he managed to escape to Croatia. He was arrested there, and North Macedonia requested his extradition.¹³⁸ Croatia did not extradite him to North Macedonia because he was sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague in March 2005 for his other offences in the 2001 conflict. He was imprisoned there until 2008.¹³⁹ The duration of this scandal is quite short: March 2002 to April 2005.

Conclusion

This article presents a more systematic approach to intelligence scandals on the conceptual and practical levels by confirming our initial arguments. We developed a new definition of intelligence scandal based on the publicization of (alleged) intelligence transgressions and created a new analytical model for assessing such scandals according to the political science literature. The model builds on seven key variables (intelligence transgression, context, immediate triggers, actors involved, actors’ defence, time dynamics and consequences), yet others might also be included (an open-ended model). The model’s variables and indicators will enable other analysts to systematically analyse and compare many other intelligence scandals around the world.

The analytical model’s application to six major intelligence scandals in North Macedonia between 1995 and 2020 leads to several useful lessons. First, the cases show that various intelligence and political actors can be alleged to have committed a wide spectrum of transgressions in largely internal and external political contexts with very broad political and security consequences. The case also shows the competitive nature of the triggers of scandals, various kinds of actors’ defences and their extended duration. We are also able to confirm that part of our argument stating that intelligence scandals are not merely about exposing transgressions in the intelligence field but about reinforcing the primacy of democratic values, norms and legitimizing further changes made to intelligence systems. The variable on the consequences of scandals offered a lot of material from investigated cases that supports this argument. Investigations by the Parliament reinforced the mechanism of checks and balances, investigations by the Public Prosecutors; court processes and court sentences on the national and international levels reinforced the rule of law; resignations by heads of intelligence services or related sectors and ministers reflected the sense of public accountability; public protests represented a mechanism of expression of the public will; and significant reforms of the intelligence services, including the establishment of a new service (National Security Agency) and amendment to the Constitution all reflect how the energy produced by intelligence scandals can be transformed into serious reform processes. Intelligence scandals represent a key ‘game changer’ in the intelligence world that enables decision-makers to make changes and improvements. They open windows of opportunity to make changes that could last several years, as indirectly suggested by the time variable in our model. Interestingly, new intelligence scandals and related reforms hold the potential to override the earlier reforms arising from previous intelligence scandals. This article’s findings corroborate assumptions in the intelligence accountability literature that most intelligence accountability tends to follow a fire-alarm model (scandals drive accountability). Yet, the paper contributes to this literature by unpacking the elements of intelligence scandals and showing how they contribute to accountability and reform. A more systematic study of intelligence scandals and their characteristics would add not only to the accountability and oversight of services but help in understanding the quality of the accountability systems used in modern democracies.

The horizontal comparative view given in Table 1 shows that all intelligence transgressions (variable 1) entail a certain form of abuse of public office and institutional authority, extending from unauthorized and illegal wiretapping, corrupt violation of public procurement procedures, failure to prevent an assassination attempt or participating in it, the abduction of innocent people as part of the War on Terror, their torture, extraordinary rendition or assassination. Frankly, this Western Balkan country’s submission to the USA can reach as far as committing torture and assassination in return for support. The very broad spectrum of the causes of scandals (variable 2) combines internal (sometimes also security) political competition with external inter-state problems or motivation to show commitment to America and its War on Terror. Intelligence scandals were triggered (variable 3) by special events such as press conferences by opposition leaders or public prosecutors, media reports or automatically by the event itself. The key actors involved (variable 4) can be heads of intelligence services and involved sectors/bureaus, certain intelligence employees, ministers (especially for internal affairs in our case study) and heads of government, former ministers and heads of services, certain companies, foreign intelligence services and also para-military groups. The involved actors have mostly defended themselves (variable 5) by rejecting the accusations, redirecting attention to other internal or foreign potential culprits, counter-accusations and reinterpretations. In one case, the actors involved also officially apologized for the transgressions. The duration of the scandals, (variable 6) turned out to be quite long. Still, the scandals’ peaks are shorter, giving decision-makers less time to fix problems than consideration of the scandal’s entire duration might suggest. Most of the scandals have still not ended as materials and allegations continue to periodically surface in the media. An extremely wide spectrum of direct consequences (variable 7) was detected, such as the tarnished reputation of all individuals involved, diminished trust in the intelligence services, including the government, political crises, criminal investigations, court proceedings before national courts or also the European Court of Human Rights, verdicts, the resignation of actors, parliamentary investigations, and the withdrawal of immunity, assassinations of witnesses or scandal-related actors, the fleeing of accused actors, deterioration of relations with foreign countries, etc. Indirect consequences include legal and structural reforms made to the intelligence services, an amendment to the Constitution, an official apology by the government, an impact on the next election results, etc. These indirect impacts show that the primacy of democratic values and norms has been reinforced to some extent in these scandals, legitimizing further changes to the intelligence system. On the other hand, it is worrying that the main actors in three of the six cases were later pardoned by the President.

Intelligence scandals are symptomatic of modern democracy and its development. They might perhaps be seen as one of the most important litmus tests of democracy, simultaneously holding a negative role for the sources of intelligence power and a positive one for the sources of democratic power. If an intelligence scandal emerges, it should be used as leverage and as a correction mechanism to improve the intelligence system and the state of democracy. All modern states need both effective intelligence services and an effective democracy. The relationship between these two entails a crucial balancing point, and all states must establish a balance between intelligence efficiency and democratic values and norms. The mantra in each democratic state should be effective intelligence while respecting the legal framework. Our case study suggests that this mantra looks like a holy grail of modern intelligence and modern democracy. In other words, our article with only one national case study and several related examples of intelligence scandals shows a great controversy that will have to be studied also on other national cases. The studied examples include very serious transgressions, involving murders and other illegal activities that are not unique only to states transitioning from authoritarian to democratic forms of governance. We suspect that further comparative studies will show that intelligence scandals take place in more and less democratic countries and also their similarity in terms of the above identified types, transgressions, consequences, etc. Our article also opens a question about the theoretical and practical sweet spot in the balancing process between effective intelligence and proper democracy. Investigated scandals definitely show that this sweet spot is constantly changing, depending on numerous factors. Perhaps, the current situation, where some intelligence transgressions are uncovered and some not (i.e., intelligence does not work as it theoretically could) and democratic control works only to some extent (i.e., democracy does not work as it theoretically could), already points us towards this sweet spot.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Iztok Prezelj

Iztok Prezelj, Ph.D., is a Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. As a Vice-Dean for Scientific Research in the period 2017-2021, he was directing research process at the Institute of Social Sciences with 20 research centers. He was also a Head of Defence Studies in the period from 2015-2017. Iztok Prezelj published widely in the fields of national & international security, terrorism & counter-terrorism, intelligence, crisis management, threat & risk assessment and critical infrastructure. He is also a president of the Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia.

Teodora Tea Ristevska

Tea Teodora Ristevska is a research fellow and teaching assistant at the Defence Research Centre, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, and additional master's degree in European Studies from the University of Ljubljana. She is working on a PhD topic entitled Security-Liberty Dilemma in the Case of the War on Terrorism.

Notes

1. Thompson, Political Scandal, ix, 5.

2. Adut, On Scandal, 75.

3. Markovits and Silverstein, “Introduction,” 7; and Thompson, Political Scandal, 92–94.

4. Abercombie, Hill and Turner, 330.

5. Herman, Intelligence Power, 2, 381.

6. Gill, “Security Intelligence and Human Rights.”

7. Johnson, “The CIA,” 190–91.

8. Willmetts, “The Cultural Turn,” 800–809.

9. Crowther and Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.

10. Lowi, “Foreword,” x.

11. Adut, On Scandal, 4–19.

12. Johnson, “A shock theory,” 344–45.

13. Gibson, “Open Source Intelligence.”

14. Johnson, “A shock theory,” 349.

15. See Johnson, “The Development of Intelligence.”

16. See Gill and Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World.

17. Hillebrand, “Intelligence Oversight and Accountability,” 307.

18. See Hillebrand, “Placebo scrutiny?”

19. Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets, 201.

20. See Leigh, “The Accountability of Security,” 68.

21. McConnel, “A public policy approach,” 3–5.

22. Copeland, Intelligence Failure Theory, 3.

23. Howlett, “The lessons of failure,” 542.

24. Johnson, “A shock theory,” 350.

25. Bovens & t’ Hart, Understanding policy flascoes, 15.

26. See Bovens & t’Hart, “Revisiting the study”; and Bovens & t’Hart, Understanding Policy Fiascoes, 9.

27. Cormac & Daddow “Covert action failure.”

28. Dagnes, “Introduction,” xi; and Basinger et al., “Preface: Counting and Classifying,” 4.

29. Thompson, Political Scandal, 219–26.

30. See Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 91–276; Shulsky and Schmitt, Silent Warfare, 11–127; and Gill and Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World.

31. Paton Walsh et al, “The cold war.”

32. EDRi, “Telecom Italia wiretapping scandal.”

33. “National Commission on Terrorist Attacks.”

34. Gaskarth, “How the Iraq War.”

35. Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets, 91–276.

36. Dahl, Intelligence and Surprise Attack, 177.

37. Vickers, The History of CIA’s Office

38. Rovner, Fixing the Facts 10–16, 205; “Iraq WMD inquiry”; and Assinder, “Analysis: Blair gives ground.”

39. Bremner, “Mitterrand ordered bombing.”

40. “Litvinenko killed over dossier.”

41. Miller and Isikoff, “CIA Officer Charged.”

42. Ellison, “FBI agent.”

43. Schmid and Ulrich, “New Documents Reveal Truth.”

44. Prezelj and Otorepec Vogarinčič, “Criminal and Networked,” 547.

45. Prelec, “The Macedonian Surveillance Scandal.”

46. Shorrock, Spies for Hire, 375–377, “Former top CIA official.”

47. “Edward Snowden.”

48. Holpuch, “Chelsea Manning.”

49. Lowi, “Foreword,” 1.

50. Adut, On Scandal.

51. Thompson, Political Scandal.

52. Neckel, “Political Scandals an Analytical Framework.”

53. Tumber and Waisbord, “Introduction,” 1032.

54. Yanai, “The Political Affair.”

55. Markovits and Silverstein, “Introduction,” 91.

56. Tumber and Waisbord, “Introduction.”

57. Easley, “Spying on Allies,” 151.

58. Markovits and Silverstein, “Introduction,” 3.

59. Thompson, Political Scandal, 78.

60. Shorrock, Spies for Hire, 12; and Van Puyvelde, Outsourcing US intelligence, 145.

61. Thompson, Political Scandal, 17–23; 245–46.

62. Adut, On Scandal, 24–25.

63. Szasz, “The Process and Significance.”

64. Markovits and Silverstein, “Introduction,” 1–3.

65. Tumber and Waisbord, “Introduction,” 1031–32.

66. Bowler and Karp, “Politicians, Scandals, and Trust,” 271; and Szasz, “The Process and Significance,” 215.

67. Dagnes, “Introduction,” xiv.

68. Jacobsson and Löfmarck, “A Sociology of Scandal,” 211.

69. Basinger et al., “Preface: Counting and Classifying.”

70. Dagnes and Sachleben, “Conclusions,” 276.

71. Markovits and Silverstein, “Introduction,” 2.

72. Lowi, “Foreword,” x; Tumber & Waisbord, “Introduction: Political Scandals,” 1035; and Thompson, Political scandal, 108–113.

73. Barbarovski, “Za Kogo Gi Cuvas.”

74. N.S., “Kostov: Ako vo MVR”; and Sotirovska, “Politichka Chepkalka.”

75. Stojchev and Mateska, “Iron Lady”; and Bozinovski, “Kirov nasata sluzba.”

76. J.L., “Kontrolorite so Sturi”; and “Site Prislushkuvani Na Soslushuvanje.”

77. “Aferata Prisluskuvanje Bez Sudska Razvrska”; “Dimovska i Cvetkov”; and “Prislushkuvan i Pretsedatelot.”

78. Machikj, “Dosta Bila Narachatel”; and Stojeva, “Povtoren Proces?”

79. P.A.L., “Branko Mu Dolzi”, and Constitution of North Macedonia, Article 17.

80. “Ustavnata Izmena.”

81. Gjorgjevski, “Nikoj Ne Ja Kani”; and “Dosta Dimovska Podnese Ostavka.”

82. “Site odgovori na Zaev.”

83. Dimovski, “Lugjeto Na Sasho Mijalkov.”

84. Kalinski, “Prislushkuvanje Bez Kontrola.”

85. “Zaev najavuva novi bombi”; and Blazevska, “Zaev’s bomb.”

86. “VMRO DPMNE.”

87. “OTA Official Webpage.”

88. See note 84 above.

89. “Target-Fortress epilogue.”

90. M.S., “Abolition: From pardon.”

91. “Poraneshniot Direktor Na UBK.”

92. FinFisher software enables services to remotely control target computers and capture their content. This malware is normally installed through fake updates of other known programs.

93. See note 45 above.

94. Samardziski, “Presuda za Trezor.”

95. Ibid.

96. Marczak et al., “Pay No Attention,” 13.

97. Cvetkovska, “Dali “FinFisher”.”

98. “Slucajot Trezor.”

99. Marusic, “Special Prosecution Witness Death.”

100. Blazevska, “Jankukovska, Janakievski Mijalkov.”

101. Blazevska, “The Ministry of Interior claimed.”

102. See note 94 above.

103. Ibid.

104. Pesev, “Macedonian President Injured.”

105. “Eleventh anniversary of assassination”; “Hypothesis about Gligorov’s assassination”; and “What Lies Beneath.”

106. Petreski, “Obvinitelstvoto go dozna identitetot.”

107. “Frchkovski Svedocheshe Pred Obvinitelstvoto.”

108. “Naracatelite i Izvrsitelite Ostanaa.”

109. Blazevska, “Stravot Od “Golemoto Uvo”.”

110. “Janakieski, Peshev and Frckoski.”

111. “What Lies Beneath?”

112. Bacev, “MVR laze.”

113. “Dvaeset godini od atentatot”; Bacev, “MVR laze”; and “25 godini po atentatot.”

114. El-masri, “America Kidnapped Me.”

115. Isakovska, “Condemning Extraordinary Rendition.”

116. Case of El-Masri judgment.

117. Stojkovski, “El-Masri vs. Republic of Macedonia.”

118. “CIA Report.”

119. Daskalovski, “Walking on the edge”; and Kim, “Macedonia (FYROM): Post-Conflict.”

120. Marusic, “Macedonia Apologises.”

121. Ibid.

122. Priest, “CIA Holds Terror Suspects.”

123. Pavlovska, “Advokat Filip Medarski.”

124. “European Parliament resolution.”

125. Isakovska, “Condemning Extraordinary Rendition”; and Van Ginkel, “A Long Journey.”

126. Dawn, “Seven Pakistanis.”

127. Wood, “A Fake Macedonia Terror.”

128. “Razlicni verzii za akcijata.”

129. “Ljube precekan so euforija.”

130. Macedonia Murder Mystery.

131. “Boskovski begal od Hag”; and “Uapsenite kaj Rastanski.”

132. “Sudot gi odbi”; and “Pritvorenite za Rastanski lozja.”

133. See note 131 above.

134. See note 126 above.

135. Janevski, “Teroristicki napad vrz makedonskiot.”

136. “FBI ucestvuvalo vo istragata.”

137. A. M. M, “Obvinetite za Rastanski lozja”; and “Sudija vodel istraga.”

138. “Imunitetot na Boskovski”; and “Makedonci traze.”

139. “Ljube Boskovski to be.”