• Monday, 01 July 2024

Tupancheski: Ministry of Justice to propose law changes preventing 'prison tourism'

Tupancheski: Ministry of Justice to propose law changes preventing 'prison tourism'
Skopje, 23 July 2022 (MIA) — The Ministry of Justice will propose that prisoners serve their sentences near their place of residence in the last two years, Minister of Justice Nikola Tupancheski said commenting on convicted former top official Sasho Mijalkov and businessman Orce Kamchev, who changed their Skopje addresses to Ohrid addresses and made it legal to serve time in the Struga prison. “Turns out Struga is the city of prison tourism. It's an open prison, and of course, in terms of security and living conditions, it offers more privileges and is better than other penal institutions in our country,” the justice minister said in an interview with Radio Free Europe. He said the current legislation made it legal to switch prisons this way, but the Ministry of Justice was going to propose changes to the Law on Execution of Sanctions, which would “tie the execution of the sentence to the last two years of residence before the crime was committed.” “In this way, we would avoid this absurd situation or a situation that maybe resembles abuse or skirting the law,” Tupancheski said. mr/