following an open call from former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski that state prosecutors clarify the charges against him, prosecutor Vilma Ruskoska said that he is charged after he was calling on the public to join the protests in 2017.

The suspect N.G. was a leader of a political party and he was using media outlets to call the citizens to protest and he used the political structure of the party to support it. We have messages. Some are secured, said Ruskoska.

According to Gruevski, who is in political asylum in Hungary, if calling the public to protest is a criminal act, an act of terrorism no less, then all political leaders in Macedonia should be charged with terrorism. Gruevski pointed out that he was calling for peaceful protests and condemned the assault on several members of Parliament when the rally spiraled out of control when the SDSM and DUI parties staged an irregular vote to appoint a new Speaker.

Gruevski was charged along with former Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski and two VMRO officials Mile Janakieski and Spiro Ristovski. Janakieski and Ristovski were assaulted in prison today by a member of an ethnic Albanian terrorist group arrested after its bloody attack on Kumanovo, and Janakieski sustained serious injuries.