Nikola Gruevski

In a first-instance verdict, the Skopje Criminal Court on Friday found the former head of the secret police, Saso Mijalkov, guilty on all three accounts, of criminal association, abuse of office and receiving a reward for illegal influence, handing him a jail sentence of 12 years.

Authorities in North Macedonia confirmed on Monday that they have issued a national arrest warrant for former secret police chief Saso Mijalkov, after police fruitlessly tried to find him at several locations in the capital, Skopje, on Sunday evening, to escort him to house detention on court orders. The authorities are expected to issue an international arrest warrant as well.

The Financial Police Directorate told BIRN that, as a director of ALFA SKOP DOO Skopje in 2013 and 2014, Kazic failed to report profits of 61.8 million denars, roughly a million euros, "thus failing to calculate and pay profit tax in the amount of 10 per cent of the total."

ALFA SKOP DOO is the owner of Alfa TV, one of six national broadcasters in North Macedonia.

A similar problem, to a lesser extent, appears when searching for news reports from May 5, 2015.

That was when the then opposition Social Democrats in North Macedonia published wiretapped recordings suggesting that police and top officials might have been involved in a police cover-up of the brutal murder of a young man, Martin Neskovski.

Why this grave political mistake, I simply fail to understand. Now, in line with to electoral legislation, he has made way for a caretaker government which includes the opposition. "Wait, wait, wait - what?" you ask.

The then opposition leader who later became the Prime Minister, Zoran Zaev [c], was among the badly injured during the mob attack. Photo: EPA/STR

More minnows than big fish on trial:

The parliament came under attack amid a tense political standoff between the allies and opponents of the former right-wing VMRO DPMNE government led by Nikola Gruevski.

Skopje Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced Democratic Union for Integration, DUI party officials Ejup Alimi and Ismet Guri to three-and-a-half years in jail each for the "destruction of electoral materials" in Skopje's municipality of Cair during the 2013 local polls.

The people who have supported the formation of the new party are now also required to provide proof of citizenship, not older than six months.

Tortevski says that this demand is absurd and unnecessary because those who have signed notary statements have already legitimized themselves with their IDs or passports. "A non-citizen cannot have a passport or an ID," he notes.

The trial has started in Skopje of those charged with organising a mob assault on parliament in North Macedonia in April 2017, aimed at preventing the then opposition Social Democrats from taking power.

Dealing a death blow to a trial of the fugitive former prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, the main judge in the case codenamed TNT, Ognen Stavrev, on Monday said jury member Lijana Ivanovska Kockovska had resigned, rendering the entire process null and void.

Stavrev scheduled a new start for the trial on Tuesday, warning defence lawyers not to try to stall the case any further.