The Criminal Court of the Basic Court Skopje 1, within the next 48 hours will decide whether Sead Kočan will be granted bail or remanded into custody.
Prosecutors from the SPO, Gavril Bubevski and Artan Ajro at today’s hearing put forward their arguments and stated that there have been incidents when Kočan had reoffended and that the bail of 900.000 euros and the confiscation of his passport is no guarantee.
Kočan’s defense team, led by Nikola Dodevski emphasized that the bail is legitimate and that it is practiced in all democratic countries, therefore the SPO has no reason again to request detainment.
The Criminal Council now has a deadline of 48 hours to respond to the SPO’s appeal and decide whether to terminate the detainment for Kočan, who is the prime suspect in the “Trust” case.
The judge from the preliminary procedure ruled on Thursday that Kočan should not be remanded into custody, but to be granted bail of 900.000 euros, his passport to be confiscated and to appear in court once a week. Kočan was not available to law enforcement for two months, however, he returned to Macedonia immediately after his arrest warrants were terminated.
For the second time, the Criminal Court is deciding on Kočan’s custody, because in previous rulings by the court and the Court of Appeals, who decided to have the businessman remanded into custody, it was then terminated by the Supreme Court and it was decided there will be a retrial.
