Former Parliament Speaker and first defendant in the trial against organizers of the Parliament storming on April 27, 2017, Trajko Veljanovski, testified in the trial on Thursday the Skopje-based Criminal Court.

As Parliament Speaker from the previous composition, I scheduled the constitutive session on December 30, 2016, in accordance with the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament with 4 items on the agenda: Verification Commission, verification of mandates, election of a Commission, and election of a Speaker.

For the smooth running of the session, I scheduled a preparatory meeting on December 29, 2016. The meeting was attended by representatives of VMRO-DPMNE, SDSM, DUI, BESA and the Alliance for Albanians, said Trajko Veljanoski.

He stressed that he insisted on reaching an agreement on all items on the agenda to end the session properly, but that the representative of SDSM Oliver Spasovski and the representative of DUI Talat Xhaferi asked to stop completing the second item – the verification of the mandate of the MPs and the third item – the election of the Commission for election and appointment.

Veljanoski explained what happened at the session on April 6, 2017 when Oliver Spasovski asked to stop the debate on the third point and move on to the fourth point, although he had registered for a speech after that third point.

Moreover, he gave detailed explanation to what happened on April 27 and said as Parliament Speaker, he strictly respected and adhered to the provisions of the Rules of Procedure, which can also be conformed from the testimonies of  witnesses Zoran Zaev, Petar Atanasov, Afrim Gashi, Nikola Todorov and other MPs.

According to Veljanoski, the testimony of the witness Aleksandar Vasilevski that on April 27 Biljana Briskovska communicated with him and that she ordered him to open the Parliament doors was a false statement.