The criminal court in Skopje today found that former Customs Bureau director Dragan Daravelski will walk free, as the criminal case against him has reached the statute of limitations.

Daravelski was head of the Customs in the Ljubco Georgievski Government, in the late 1990ies and early 2000s, and was charged in the massive arrest of Georgievski’s officials after 2002. He was sentenced for abuse of office and was supposed to serve seven years in prison. But he fled the country to Serbia, which would not extradite him.

He surprisingly returned to Macedonia earlier this year, after the required time for the crime to be considered lapsed.