The Skopje Appeals Court accepted appeals from the defendants in the April 27th trial and returned the process back for retrial. The case is aimed against former Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski, two former ministers Spiro Ristovski and Mile Janakieski, and former state security chief Vladimir Atanasovski, over their role in organizing the 2017 protests that led to the provoked storming of the Parliament.

According to the Appeals Court, the lower court did not take fully into account the effects of an amnesty law adopted by the Parliament to pardon the organizers of the protests, that could be employed in this trial. That is why the initial verdicts, that amounted to about six years in prison for the four defendants, are sent back.

The Zaev – Kovacevski regime abused the incident and a larger earlier trial to blackmail VMRO-DPMNE members of Parliament into voting for the name change imposed by Greece, and that is why the amnesty law was adopted. A group of protesters are still imprisoned – they did not receive amnesties – and some in SDSM are using their fate to again pressure VMRO to vote for constitutional amendments – this time to placate Bulgaria and implement its nationalist demands.