Former North Macedonian leader Nikola Gruevski, who remains a fugitive, got a nine-year sentence for demolishing a building
The fugitive former North Macedonian prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, was sentenced on Friday to nine years in prison for ordering the demolition of a building owned by a political adversary.
Skopje’s Criminal Court handed down the sentence after finding that Gruevski had abused his power and ordered the 2011 demolition as an “act of political revenge” against Fijat Canoski, a former ally who had left the ruling coalition to lead a fledgling opposition party. Canoski was developing a large residential complex, called the Cosmos Building, when the project was razed, ostensibly because of permit violations.
Gruevski ruled the Balkan country, then called Macedonia, from 2006 to 2016. He has been sentenced in absentia in four cases since fleeing to Hungary in 2018. The latest sentence marks his longest prison term. He was…
