According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, none of the 56 persons questioned were found to be responsible for the way in which former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski was able to leave the country and reach Hungary where he sought political asylum.

Facing arrest on politically motivated criminal charges, Gruevski left Macedonia in November for Albania, where he sought political asylum in the Hungarian Embassy, and was soon taken to Budapest via Montenegro and Serbia. During a recent interview with Sitel TV, he refused to disclose details about his escape, and he previously insisted that he was careful not to implicate people who might then face retribution.

Prosecutors now say that no officials were involved in his escape. Some oversights were identified, but they don’t constitute criminal negligence on the part of the institutions that are involved.
Gruevski was considered political enemy number 1 for the Zaev regime and the most watched of the VMRO-DPMNE officials who face charges and arrests. And still he was able to leave the country, while the police staged raids after him across the capital Skopje, including a virtual siege of the main VMRO-DPMNE office.

The police analyzed hours of footage from the Skopje city cameras, from hotels, the Skopje airport, the road from Debar to the Albanian border and elsewhere, and sought footage from Albania, but were informed that Albanian authorities have erased the needed recording by default.

Some 60 phone numbers were analyzed and two dozen border police officers were questioned, as were the six members of Gruevski’s police security detail. Gruevski was also found to have withdrawn 120.000 EUR from three of his accounts in Skopje in one day, which was reported by the banks.