A Skopje court ordered Lidija Dimova, recently deposed head of the agency that manages EU funded education programs in Macedonia, to hand over both her personal and official passport, to prevent her possible escape from the country as she is charged with abuse of office.

Dimova is charged with a number of counts of mismanagement of EU and other agency funds, including a now notorious payment of 270,000 EUR to a hair salon ran by a person who she worked with on leftist NGO projects. The total damages are estimated at 400,000 EUR.

Dimova was quickly denounced by her fellow SDSM party officials, indicating a deepening rift between the “urban”, Skopje based wing of the party she belongs to and the “rural”, Strumica wing of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who personally instructed the agency board to dismiss her. Dimova was a long standing leftist NGO activist, and member of Parliament for SDSM, who promoted her to departments related to EU integration.