The Skopje Court of Appeal passed a decision by which it respected the appeals of the defendants in the "Treasury" case, presented by their lawyers, thus canceling the first-instance verdict and returning the matter to the Basic Criminal Court Skopje for retrial and decision-making.

The Skopje Court of Appeal reports that, acting on the criminal case KOKŽ-100/21, known to the public as "Tresor", after a public session, it passed a decision in which it accepted the appeals of the defendants S.M. by S., G.G. from S., N.S. from S. and T.J. from S., stated through their lawyers, which annulled the first-instance verdict and returned the case to the Basic Criminal Court Skopje for retrial and decision-making, it is stated in today's announcement from the Court of Appeal.

When reviewing the rebuttal verdict, as added in the announcement, the Skopje Court of Appeal found that the first-instance court, when dealing with this case, committed significant violations of the provisions of the Law on Criminal Procedure, which calls into question the factual situation and the correct application of the Criminal Code .

The former director of UBC Sasho Mijalkov, as the first defendant in the case, was sentenced to a single sentence of 8 years in prison, while the former head of his office Toni Jakimovski received a 5-year prison sentence, and the former assistant minister in the Ministry of the Interior Nebojsa Stajkovic was sentenced to a 5-year prison sentence, and the former Goran Grujevski, head of the Fifth Administration in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. The three were charged with abuse of official position and powers, and Toni Jakimovski with aiding and abetting.

The case was initiated in 2017 by the then Special Public Prosecutor's Office due to reasonable suspicion that the accused civil servants in UBK and MIA made direct procurement of electronic communication equipment for the needs of the Fifth Directorate at UBK instead of GAMA from Great Britain, as the most economical way, agreed the procurement to be performed through another company - intermediary Finzi DOOEL Skopje, to the detriment of the budget of RSM.

According to the indictment, over 860 thousand euros were misused in this case.

- The defendant Sašo Mijalkov, together with the other defendants, deliberately committed the crimes where the contracts were concluded with the sole purpose of obtaining a benefit in favor of FINZI DOOEL Skopje, said judge Bektović.

The court once ordered all four defendants to jointly compensate the damage done to the state budget.

At the same time, with the judgment, funds in the amount of 10.819.959 MKD were confiscated from the Finzi company.

The verdicts in the "Treasury" case fell: Mijalkov received an eight-year prison sentence