Divisive Revolutionary's Statue Vanishes from Macedonian Capital

Mayor of Skopje Petre Silegov has defended a decision to remove a contentious statue from the entrance to the Supreme Court - saying its erection in 2014 had been illegal and had become synonymous with the failed ideology of the country's former authoritarian government.

Instead, he said the city will plant a tree, symbolizing human rights.

He said that the statue, depicting the former Macedonian revolutionary and assassin Andon Lazov Kjoseto [1855-1953], was removed on the grounds that it was illegal.

He said the former authorities of Skopje's Centar Municipality erected it without the necessary approval by the parliament, which rendered its erection illegal.

After it was put up in 2014, almost overnight, there were complaints that Kjoseto - a controversial figure who assassinated some other prominent Macedonian revolutionaries as "traitors" - did not deserve a statue.

The statue quickly became synonymous with the former right-wing government, led by the VMRO DPMNE party.

Some even saw a chilling message in the location of such a statue in front of the Supreme Court, especially as the figure was depicted with a dagger in one hand and a revolver in the other.

The state formed part of the massive government-sponsored revamp, called Skopje 2014, which transformed the look of the city and was masterminded by the former government under Nikola Gruevski.

It encompasses dozens of new buildings, hundreds of facades, giant monuments, bridges and other features, mostly inspired by the artistic styles of Classical Antiquity.

The project has been called kitcsch - and has also been criticized for its lack of transparency. Some critics suspect that it became a way to siphon money from the state budget.