Judge Dobrila Kacarska, seen as one of the most loyal pro-Government judges in the country, again issued a sentence of nine years in prison against former Interior Ministry official Gjoko Popovski.

Popovski was sentenced in one of the cases initiated by the now disgraced Special Prosecutor’s Office, for alleged irregularities in the procurement of new police vehicles, but the case was returned for retrial. Popovski was also charged in the case of the procurement of an armored Mercedes used to carry visiting dignitaries – the case that the SPO created to go after former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. It’s widely believed that the charges were piled on Popovski to get him to testify against Gruevski.

Kacarska was the judge who sentenced a group of opposition officials and activists to lengthy prison sentences for “terrorism” in the “April 2017” case which was used to blackmail three VMRO-DPMNE members of Parliament to vote in favor of the imposed name change. Due to her heavy and open bias, the opposition party declared Kacarska the favorite judge of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, and uses her name as a codeword for the entire politically managed judiciary.