Skopje, 22 January 2025 (MIA) - Minister of Interior Panche Toshkovski said more evidence is currently being collected on whether the police officer on duty during former deputy PM Artan Grubi's country exit had made a lapse or whether it was an organized escape as part of a certain group. 

"An investigation has been opened into this and the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office is working on it. Within what we have as indisputable evidence, we have filed criminal charges against the person, and he has been suspended from work. An investigation is also currently underway into whether there has been any communication and what kind of communication it was," Toshkovski told TV24. 

He noted that serious preparations had been made, and all resources had been engaged in order to prevent exactly such a scenario. According to him, there were other additional services at the border that were supposed to react if there had been an escape, but, he pointed out, they did not react because it had been a secret operation.

"It is a fact that there were other additional services sent to the border to react to a possible escape of the person in question, but it is also a fact that they did not know who they should stop because that is part of the police operational work," said Toshkovski, adding that no one could have guessed that a police officer whose job is to check whether a certain person is on the 'stop list' and meets the conditions to leave or not to leave the country, would fail to do that. 

Toshkovski pointed out that the fact that Artan Grubi does not express an initiative to return to the country is a sufficient indicator of whether he is guilty or not.

On December 9, 2024, the U.S. Department of State designated former deputy prime minister of North Macedonia, Artan Grubi, and Enver Bexheti, Court of Appeals judge, for their involvement in significant corruption. According to the press release, Grubi and Bexheti had accepted bribes to undermine judicial processes tied to the criminal conviction of Sasho Mijalkov, director of North Macedonia’s Administration for Security and Counterintelligence (UBK).

Grubi and former State Lottery director Perparim Bajrami, who are being suspected for the misappropriation of EUR 8 million from the State Lottery, are currently not available to law enforcement.

Photo: print screen