English
Karpos Mayor Stevco Jakimovski was sentenced to three and a half years in prison today.
The long serving Mayor and former Economy Minister was charged with two separate crimes, and the Skopje Court combined the sentence into two. Jakimovski was given one year for unlawfully building the administrative building where the municipal authority now resides. The sentence in this case could have been between 3 and 8 years, but the court took into account the fact that Jakimovski was ordering the construction of a public building. In the second case, he was accused with abuse of office for legalizing unlawfully built buildings. The sentence can be put to appeal.
The charges are long standing – dating back to the Zaev regime when Jakimovski faced several charges. He was re-elected in 2021 with the support of VMRO-DPMNE, but quickly broke with the ruling party and is now an outspoken critic of its Government. Jakimovski was recently placed on the US black list for running corrupt public procurement contracts.
