Skopje, 14 July 2026 (MIA) – The Skopje Criminal Court on Tuesday acquitted former prime minister Nikola Gruevski in the so-called “Talir 2” case after being indicted for exceeding the limits of official authority and illegal financing of the construction of VMRO-DPMNE’s party headquarters in Skopje. 

The judge Daniela Aleksovska, announcing the verdict, said the 2023 changes into the Criminal Code should be taken into consideration regarding this case, which prompted the indictment to be amended.

“Even though the indictment was amended, evidence and facts delivered before the court weren’t amended. The Court finds that the prosecution has not proven beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant Nikola Gruevski had exceeded the limits of his official authority,” said Aleksovska.

Considering the situation, she added, the Court fully accepts the Appellate Court’s position that the Criminal Code amendments directly benefit the defendant.

“On this occasion, the Court stresses that every verdict is sending a certain message to the public. In this case, the message is the following: this acquittal is purely the result of the adoption of the amendments to the Criminal Code in 2023 and as a direct consequence which was the annulment of the first-instance verdict in this case, as concluded by the Skopje Court of Appeal in the second-instance decision in this case. Although this verdict is totally different from the one previously made in the concrete case, the Court notes that the analysis and the assessment of the evidence, established facts and conclusions delivered by the Court have remained unchanged. With the same evidence, based on which the Court had previously established that a crime had been committed by ‘misuse of office’, the Court believes that with the existence of the same evidence, it was not proven beyond reasonable doubt that the crime was committed through another type of action, i.e. through 'exceeding authority' and 'failure to perform official duty',” said Aleksovska.

The Court, she concluded, remains consistent in deciding, analysing and assessing the evidence as well as the facts, on which its decisions are based, because it is the only way to guarantee the right to legal safety of the citizens on whose behalf the Court has been delivering its verdicts. 

As the verdict was being announced in the courtroom in the Criminal Court in Skopje, the ex-officio lawyers of former prime minister Nikola Gruevski, Petar Timovski, and of VMRO-DPMNE, Kristina Manevska, as well as the party's representative, lawyer Ljubica Nikolovska, were in attendance.

Legal fees will be covered by the state. The Court rejected the prosecution’s motion for the VMRO-DPMNE headquarters to be confiscated.

The verdict is not final and the parties have the right to appeal to higher courts.

In April 2026, the “Talir 2” case was taken over by the prosecutor Kristijan Smilevski of the Skopje Public Prosecutor’s Office after prosecutor Lenche Ristovska resigned.

In January 2024 following the amendments to the Criminal Code relating to crime of Article 353, the Skopje Appellate Court abolished the first-instance verdicts in the “Talir 2” case and a retrial was ordered. The indictment against the former government secretary general, Kiril Bozhinovski, accused of abuse of office, entered statute of limitations. Ex-PM Grievski and the party VMRO-DPMNE were still being tried.

On June 7, 2022, the Criminal Court announced a first-instance verdict according to which the former prime minister Nikola Gruevski, who had fled to Budapest, was sentenced to six years in prison, while Bozhinovski received a suspended sentence.

Photo: MIA