The four former Agriculture Ministry officials detained this morning were taken before the Criminal Court in Skopje. According to the state run MIA news agency, they are being charged with abuses in the distribution of the farming subsidies and in the renting of state owned farmland, all totaling 1.4 million EUR.

Former Ministers Ace Spasenovski, Mihail Cvetkov and Ljupco Dimovski, all from the small opposition Socialist Party, and Kristijan Delev from the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, were detained this morning. Since then, Dimovski, who recently received an amnesty over another politically motivated charge against him, left the court.

This latest charge against opposition officials covers a total of 584 contracts signed by the Ministry.