Albania unwittingly erases footage of Gruevski's escape

Albania has not handed over tapes from security cameras on the escape of former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski on the grounds that they have been erased.

This was made known by Macedonian state prosecutor Lubomir Jolevski. He has clarified before journalists that the records have not been deliberately erased but that Albania's monitoring system has automatically removed old records from the system.

The “have not been deliberately erased from Albanian border services. There are moments in their explanation. One thing is that the data is numerous in the security cameras and that the system cannot be stored for a long time. They haven't deleted them, but those devices are automatically operating”, Jolevski stated.

After that remains the dilemma over which exact course the former prime minister has taken advantage of, who fled Macedonia on November 9th last year. The prosecution is investigating some records it has secured from Montenegro, but that it is collecting additional evidence.

Former Prime Minister Gruevski has won political asylum in Hungary. An international warrant has been issued against him.

Gruevski has been sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of official office in the case of buying an armoured official vehicle worth nearly 600 thousand euros. At least four other court processes are under way against it.

In some publications on the social network Facebook, following the escape, Gruevski has said he accused power of political prosecution. / REL