Judge Vaska Nikolovska Masevska, who is leading the major Racket trial, called the press for a briefing following today’s hearing, to insist that she herself didn’t recognize Vice Zaev, Zoran Zaev’s brother, at one of the surveillance videos.

The video caused a major new turn in the scandal, because it shows Vice Zaev in the company of one of the Racket defendants, Zoran Mileski – Zoki Kiceec. This, and the recently revealed audio recording of Zoran Zaev discussing the activities of the racketeering group, added new evidence that the Zaev family was closely linked to the scandal. Vice Zaev for his part denied that he is the person in the video, and the court is not releasing it to the public to settle the dispute.

Judge Nikolovska said that she can’t say for certain  whether it was really Vice Zaev, but she did recognize lawyer Vane Andreev, who represented Zaev and is reportedly his marijuana business partner.