Prosecutors Renew Pressure for Macedonia Ex-PM's Arrest

Within the next few days, Macedonia's Court of Appeals will review the decisions made by Skopje's Criminal Court not to allow the detention of Gruevski and some of his associates.

The Special Prosecution, SJO said on Tuesday it will start filing appeals against the Criminal Court's decisions on Wednesday.

By law, the Appeals Court has two days to hand down its judgments on the appeals.

Skopje's Criminal Court on Monday rejected the demands filed by the SJO for the arrest and detention of former premier Gruevski, former Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska, former Transport Minister Mile Janakieski and former government secretary-generals Kiril Bozinovski and Martin Protugjer.

They have been indicted by the SJO on electoral fraud charges.

The court decided instead to take passports of the indicted former ruling VMRO DPMNE party members, and ordered them to report to the authorities once a week.

The court passed the same ruling in the case of Gruevski's cousin, former secret police chief Saso Mijalkov who is indicted in relation to cases codenamed 'Target' and 'Tvrdina' ['Fortress'], former Culture Minister Elizabeta Kanceska Milevska who is indicted in relation to a case codenamed 'Tender' and former Vice Prime Minister Vladimir Pesevski, indicted in a case known as 'Traektorija' ['Trajectory'].

Professor Gordana Buzarovska-Lazetic, one of the authors of the Criminal Procedure Law, said that the court's decisions were too lenient considering the past practice of the same court to accept detention for much less series charges.

"Bearing in mind the capacity of the judges that are left in the Criminal Court, I am not surprised at all by their decisions," Buzarovska-Lazetic said in an interview...