SKOPJE (Macedonia), November 16 (SeeNews) – Hungary has not helped Macedonia’s fugitive former prime minister Nikola Gruevski flee his country, the Hungarian prime minister’s office said on Friday, denying reports of alleged Hungarian involvement.
“In contrast to the assumptions and pieces of false news that have been published in the press, neither the Hungarian state nor the Hungarian authorities have helped Nikola Gruevski leave Macedonia,” the office of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban said in a statement.
Nikola Gruevski is in Hungary legally in accordance with the legal provisions concerning asylum procedures, the PM’s office noted, adding that the immigration and asylum office is conducting the asylum process in accordance with Hungarian and international law.
“For security reasons, the Hungarian authorities made it possible for the submission of the request and the hearing of Nikola Gruevski to take place at the headquarters of the Immigration and Asylum Office in Budapest,” the statement added.
Late on Thursday, Albanian police said that Gruevski had crossed Albania's border with Montenegro on November 11 in a vehicle owned by the Hungarian embassy in Tirana.
“The citizen Nikola Gruevski has left the territory of the Republic of Albania on 11.11.2018 at about 19:11 hours through the border crossing point of Hani i Hotit in the direction of Montenegro, as a passenger in a vehicle with a registration plate CD1013A, owned by the Hungarian Embassy in Tirana,” the Albanian police said in a statement.
The Albanian border police had received no international arrest warrant for the detention of Gruevski from the Macedonian authorities as of November 11, according to the statement. The notice was sent by Interpol Skopje on November 13.
Tirana-based Top Channel TV station quoted Montenegrin police as saying Gruevski entered Montenegro on November 11 from Albania and left the same day.
Gruevski said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that he has sought political asylum in Hungary.
“In recent days, I have received lots of threats to my life. Now I am in Budapest where I have sought political asylum from the Hungarian authorities,” Gruevski said.
On Monday, Macedonia’s interior ministry said it was searching for Gruevski on an arrest warrant after he failed to report to prison to start serving a jail sentence. In late October, the criminal court in Skopje ordered Gruevski to present himself at prison by November 8 in order to serve a two-year jail sentence for his involvement in a corruption scheme in 2012.
In May, the criminal court in Skopje sentenced Gruevski to two years in prison for unlawfully influencing the decision of interior ministry officials to purchase a Mercedes car at an estimated cost of 600,000 euro ($683,532). Last month, Skopje Appelate Court dismissed an appeal against the jail sentence lodged by Gruevski.
Gruevski led Macedonia's government from 2006 to 2016.
($ = 0.88317 euro)