Even after he received only a suspended sentence in the Centar protests trial, former Minister Mile Janakieski needs to remain under house arrest because he is a defendant in several other trials initiated by the Zaev regime against him. One of them, on the basis of which he is kept under house arrest, is now being dragged out by the court, apparently with the goal to keep Janakieski confined.

He is charged in a contract under which a company based in Albania bought land to build hotels along the Vardar river in Skopje, and to build a broad ornamental staircase on the main Skopje square. The deal was never enacted, mainly because the new, SDSM led Government and municipal authorities made it clear they oppose it, but state prosecutors charged Janakieski for not moving to take the land back from the developer. His response that subsequent ministers also have done that was ignored by the prosecutors.

The case was tried at hectic speed, even during the early stags fo the coronavirus epidemic. But now, the court ground the case down to a halt, with only one hearing scheduled in September and none scheduled in October. This means a longer house arrest order for the former minister. With Nikola Gruevski in Hungary and Saso Mijalkov apparently in the good graces of the Zaev regime, the numerous and loudly announced criminal cases against the former VMRO-DPMNE led Government have been reduced to persecuting Janakieski, and former Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska who was ordered into prison earlier this week to serve a four year sentence.