VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski followed up on his call for a retrial of the defendants for the April 27th 2017 incident in the Parliament by dismissing the “terrorism” charge against them as unacceptable. VMRO joined a large rally on Sunday, where tens of thousands of people demanded that the 16 defendants are released.

Macedonia is the only NATO member state and EU candidate state where that many people were charged with terrorism. We had other cases reopened, like Sopot and Monster, and a precedent was formed. If you ask me, the defendants in this case were provoked and acted emotionally. They should not have enterd the Parliament, there was violence and I condemn it. I will repeat that hundred times if needed. But they should not be imprisoned for terrorism. Why are they less valuable than the defendants in the Monster case (the 2012 Good Friday massacre) where there were actual victims? Zoran Zaev lied to the families of those victims, and claimed that there were other perpetrators, Mickoski said during a MRTV interview.

He was asked about a recently leaked tape reportedly including two of the defendants in this case, where one of them says he was ready to kill Zoran Zaev.

I can show you tapes where for over an hour people are plotting about me and my family. Should we release those tapes too, for popular entertainment?, he replied.