Struga police have arrested and charged a 52-year-old resident of Struga with violence. According to the charge, he insulted public figures, including PM Mickoski, on Sunday, prior to the marking of Ilinden in Tashmarunishta near Struga. The charge concerns a hate crime, which carries a prison sentence of 1 to 5 years. According to some information, the suspect is originally from Kochani, but holds a Struga ID card.
The specific criminal offense refers to hate crimes, introduced into the Criminal Code in 2018. With that specific paragraph, it was defined that “if any of the previous forms of violence are committed out of hatred (due to race, skin color, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, or other characteristic), the perpetrator shall be punished with the prescribed sentence for the corresponding paragraph, but with increased severity as an aggravating circumstance”.
Following the investigation, the Struga police decided to apply that specific article, namely to classify the verbal attack on the PM as hate-motivated violence.