Nikola Gruevski

After the Macedonian Interior Ministry said former prime minister Nikola Gruevski had fled to Hungary and was applying for political asylum there, an EU spokesperson told BIRN that Brussels was following events and hoped the case would not be politicised. 

Macedonian authorities detained the country's former transport minister, Mile Janakieski, and the former government secretary general, Kiril Bozinovski, on Wednesday after their former boss, ex-prime minister Nikola Gruevski, fled the country to avoid a jail sentence.

The Skopje Criminal Court ordered 30 days of detention for both of them.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) will seek the arrest with an international warrant of conservative former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski after confirming he fled to Hungary to avoid serving a two-year prison sentence for corruption, authorities said Tuesday.

The former prime minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) Nikola Gruevski said on Tuesday he had fled to Hungary and was seeking political asylum there, six months after he was sentenced to two years in prison on corruption-related charges.

Amid an ongoing police search for Nikola Gruevski in Macedonia, a message posted on the former prime minister's Facebook page on Tuesday said that he is in Budapest, seeking political asylum from the authorities there.

"In the past few days I have received numerous threats on my life," said the message.

"I am in Budapest and I have requested political asylum from the authorities in Hungary," Gruevski wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. He added that in the past few days, he received death threats.

Police launched a wide search for former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski after he failed to show up for three days to start serving his two-year jail sentence for the illicit purchase of a luxury limousine.

His party, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE, says that he is not with them.

Gruevski did not respond to serving a two-year prison sentence, which is why the police are now searching for him.

Gruevski was sentenced to two years in prison for abusing official position to illegally acquire an armored Mercedes.

By the order of the Criminal Court in Skopje, Macedonian police on Monday confirmed that they had issued an arrest warrant for former prime minister Nikola Gruevski who is to serve his two-year jail sentence.

This was issued after the Appeal Court last Friday rejected the former prime minister's appeal for a postponement of his sentence.

It's been two days now that authorities in FYROM are looking for former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, for whom the court has handed a two-year prison sentence, according to balkaneu.com