Zoran Zaev’s former chief of staff Dragi Raskovski was sentenced to eight years in prison for abuse of office, after he authorized the purchase of software from a company he founded and had direct financial interest in. Raskovski’s family also received an order not to sell the property that he purchased in the name of his children following the contract that amounted to 11 million denars – 1.6 million EUR.

Along with Raskovski, six of his accomplices received sentences between 3 and 5 years in prison and are ordered to restore the damage to the state budget. The sentence is seen as high and Raskovski, who was ordered into house arrest, is sure to appeal it. But the case is one of the lesser corruption revelations that were made during his term as Zoran Zaev’s right hand man.

The albino IT professor from Skopje’s Law Faculty was suspected in a much larger purchase of air traffic control equipment from Italy, and a leaked wiretap showed that he was arranging a meeting between Zaev and a Montenegrin businessman who received administrative help to advance his huge real=estate project in Tetovo.

The trial was marked by a rare event – one of the defendants, Daniel Stancev, used his closing statement to propose to another defendant – his fiance Irena Ivanovska, who accepted the offer of marriage. The judge gave them a break of half an hour to process the news, before sentencing Stancev to four years in prison, and Ivanovska – to three and a half.