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Nikola Gruevski, who is in Hungary, was not sentenced to a year and a half in prison by a court in northern Macedonia, Radio Free Europe discovered. The former Macedonian prime minister received asylum in Hungary in 2018, when he was sentenced to two years in prison for illegally buying luxury cars.
Gruevski was sentenced to two years in prison by a Macedonian court for a 600,000 euro corruption offense committed in early October 2018 under his presidency as prime minister, but the former prime minister
he escaped execution to Hungary and has been in Budapest ever since.
In the now-closed trial, another indictment said Gruevsky in 2013 ordered protesters to break into the metropolitan municipality of Skopje and prevent his political opponents from obstructing his plan to rebuild the city.
Six of his associates, including his former transport minister, were sentenced to suspended prison terms. Both the prosecution and the defense appealed the verdict. There are four other pending cases against the North Macedonian politician; accused of corruption, abuse of power and electoral fraud, among others.
The Gruevsky government is also famous for the fact that SOS appeared in its campaign strategy aiming to “disarm” the country, which put the slogan “Stop Soros” on its flag. Following this example, many political actors have changed in a similar way in Hungary. Gruevsky met with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán several times in his role as Prime Minister.
The accusations against the former prime minister stemmed from a 2015 wiretapping scandal in which individuals commissioned by the Gruevsky government illegally recorded telephone conversations of some 20,000 people, including foreign politicians, policemen, judges, journalists and diplomats.
Gruevsky lost his mandate in 2016 and an arrest warrant issued by Interpol against him has been in force since 2018. In Hungary, however, she was granted asylum.
In June 2019, the Metropolitan Court formally rejected extradition to the North Macedonian authorities.
Most recently, our editorial office received a lens at a business party in Budapest.
(Cover image: Former North Macedonia Prime Minister Nikola Gruevszki leaves his extradition trial at the Metropolitan Court on June 27, 2019. The court refused to extradite a politician convicted or accused of corruption and other crimes in his country)
(MTI / Zoltán Máthé)
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