The sentencing in the second April 27th trial led to prison terms for several former top officials of the VMRO-DPMNE party, handed by judge Ilija Trpkov, and based on the testimony of one, compromised witness who had cut a deal with the prosecution.
But a curious development is that the same judge accepted the same “usual witness”, Aleksandar Vasilevski – Ninja, in another high profile case. In 2013, Trpkov was the judge and Vasilevski – again the chief witness – in the murder trial against former Interior Minister Ljube Boskoski. Boskoski was charged with organizing the 2001 murder of two underworld figures in Skopje. Five executors and accomplices were also sentenced. According to the charge, Boskoski gave permission to mafia boss Orce Korunovski to kill his rival Marjan Tusevski, which was carried out, with one, additional victim in the process, speaking in great detail in the trial that took place more than a decade after the double killing.
Vasilevski was again the key witness in the trial. Judge Trpkov handed guilty sentences twice, only o have the group acquitted in 2019. The last trial took place well under the Zaev regime, where Boskoski is a small bit player and is now under the protection of the judiciary.
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