Macedonia Jails Gruevski Ally Over Fixed Coal Tender

Skopje Criminal Court on Friday found the businessmen Sead Kocan and one other guilty of falsifying documents in 2011 to win a 17-million-euros tender to extract coal from the Suvodol mine near the town of Bitola for the state power company, ELEM.

The tender was awarded to his consortium in 2012.

An ally of former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Kocan is owner of the company Transmet and the national TV station NOVA TV, which is close to Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE party.

In the high-profile case, codenamed "Trust", led by Macedonia's Special Prosecution, SJO - in charge of high-level crime - one other defendant, Vasilije Avirovic, representative for Sileks Nemetali company, was found guilty of the same crime and sentenced to three years.

The third defendant, Safet Vatic, who heads the company VATO, was acquitted of all charges.

The Transmet, Sileks and VATO companies were all part of the consortium that won the tender to extract the coal.

The defendants, who pleaded not guilty, will have the chance to appeal the verdict before a higher court.

The court also confiscated assets worth 17 million euros, which will be returned to the national budget.

SJO prosecutor Gavril Bubevski said they were satisfied by the court's decision to confiscate the entire amount of assets that were found to be criminally obtained.

"I congratulate the court. This is the first time that I see confiscation of property in brute sum. This is probably the greatest deterrent to similar criminal acts," Bubevski said after the verdict.

Apart from owning Transmet, which was the most active construction company in the country during the reign of the now ousted VMRO DPMNE party, Kocan was previously seen as a potential...