The 16 defendants in the April 27th trial – sentenced to long prison terms over the incident in the Parliament in 2017, will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. This decision comes after the Supreme Court refused their appeals.

The defense will surely appeal to Strasbourg. We will determine whether the appeals will be collective or individual. We still haven’t received the sentence but once we do I guarantee you that we will turn to courts abroad. We have no trust in the domestic courts, said defense attorney Dragan Pesevski.

The defendants are a group of protesters who participated in the incident in the Parliament, that was provoked by the SDSM and DUI parties and their move to take over control of the Parliament. Several defendants are senior police officials at the time, accused of not doing enough to prevent the incident that SDSM used to grab power in the country.