The Criminal Court – Skopje today announced the verdict in the case “Organizers of the 27th of April” and proclaimed the defendants guilty, giving them a total of 25 years of prison sentences.
On 27th of April 2017, a mob stormed the Parliament of Macedonia building in Skopje and had severely beaten dozens of MPs, parliament clerks and journalists and caused much damage to the interior.
The highest sentence was given to Trajko Veljanoski, the then Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia – he will serve 6 and ½ years in prison. Mile Janakieski and Spiro Ristovski, the then government ministers of transport and communications and of education and science respectively, got 6 years and 3 months prison sentences each. The former Director of the Security and Counter-intelligence Administration (UBK), Vladimir Atanasov, was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
The Prosecution today also petitioned for jail custody of the defendants.
On the 27th of March 2018, the Public Prosecution indicted 30 people for the rioting and the violence on 27th of April 2017, when the Parliament building has been stormed. 28 of the defendants were indicted for a terrorist attack on the Constitutional system and the security, while two were indicted as accomplices in the aforementioned felony. According to the indictment, the defendants endangered the lives of the Mps, the parliament clerks and the journalists which were in the legislative body at the time.
Two more persons were indicted in the “Organizers of the 27th of April” court case -the first one being the former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, and the UBK agent Nikola Boshkovski. As they are at large, the proceedings against them were stopped.
