UN Court

BELGRADE - Deputy leader of the Citizens' Initiative SDP Ksenija Bozovic said Thursday that she expected the trial against the party leader Oliver Ivanovic to begin before the end of 2015, pointing out that his defense was fully prepared for the trial.

A court in Macedonia has found at least 17 people guilty in the country's first-ever espionage trial to be held behind closed doors.

Eight defendants were found guilty on Monday of passing classified documents to the security services of unnamed foreign countries. Nine others were found guilty of lesser charges, including criminal association, blackmail and fraud.

A court on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on Monday sentenced 18 people, including former intelligence employees, to jail for up to 15 years for spying for foreign countries.

Judge Gojko Ristov said evidence presented during the trial, the first of its kind in FYROM, proved the suspects guilt. The countries they allegedly spied for were not named.

Civil servants in Athens will stage a work stoppage until noon on Friday, their union (ADEDY) said on Monday.

The walkout will happen at the same time as the Council of State will be hearing ADEDY’s appeal against the public sector evaluation scheme.

The former mayor of Thessaloniki, Vassilis Papageorgopoulos, says he will take his appeal against a jail sentence for embezzlement to the Supreme Court.

“I think everyone realizes that my name has been unjustly blackened,” the ex-public official said in a statement. “The verdict against me was a matter of expediency. I was a scapegoat. My only hope is the Supreme Court.”

What was that Turkish folk song? “Confesses the truth at police station, errs at the court…”

Defense: No evidence of genocide

THE HAGUE -- Defense of Radovan Karadzic, the American Peter Robinson, had asked the court to dismiss the second charge of the indictment dealing with genocide.

An Athens court on Thursday ruled that a strike called by Greek air traffic controllers this weekend, October 4 and 5, was illegal. As a result of the court’s decision, air travel was expected to run smoothly across the country on those days.

BELGRADE - As of today, judges of the Basic Court in Leskovac have all the facilities required for efficient work, Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic said Wednesday after visiting the newly renovated court building in Leskovac, the ministry said in a release.

Six men who carried out a double armed robbery on a bank and a post office in Velvento, northern Greece, in February 2013, will be sent to prison but will not be treated as terrorists after a court on Wednesday ruled that there is insufficient evidence that they were acting on behalf of the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire urban guerrilla group.