Criminal Court freezes assets of VMRO-DPMNE

The Criminal Court, by request of the Special Public Prosecution (SPO) in relation to the “Thaler” case, froze assets of VMRO-DPMNE.  This was revealed by SPO via their official profile on Facebook. The assets include 69 real estates owned by the party, including the Skopje-based building where their main headquarters are located. The total value of the real estates is 17.5 million euros, of which only the main building in Skopje is worth 14 million. From SPO they inform that this has been done in order to prevent the party from selling the real estates, which are a subject of investigation in the “Thaler” case. Party officials like Nikola Gruevski, Martin Protuger, Ilija Dimovski, Daniela Rangelova and other VMRO-DMNE members are charged in this case for illegal funding of the party, in amount of over 5 million euro. A reaction from VMRO-DPMNE immediately followed the announcement. “As a legal entity, the party VMRO-DPMNE is not a suspect in the “Thaler” case, so the freezing of the party’s assets is absurd. We will inform all relevant international institutions about this, which is nothing but mere political pressure over VMRO-DPMNE by the government led by SDSM. It is clear how panicked Zaev is since he activates his last resort, the SPO, to intimidate his political opponents,” said Igor Janusev from VMRO-DPMNE at a press conference.