The United States has imposed sanctions against former North Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi and Court of Appeals Judge Enver Bedjeti over corruption, BGNES reported.
The State Department said Grubi and Bedjeti accepted bribes to undermine the legal proceedings related to the criminal conviction of Sasho Miyalkov, former director of Macedonia's Security and Counterintelligence Directorate (DBC). Grubi was deputy prime minister in the government of Dimitar Kovacevski.
BGNES recalls that Mialkov was sanctioned in 2022. For more than ten years he was a "complete master" and unchangeable head of the services during the reign of his cousin, the exemplar Nikola Gruevski, who fled the country in 2018 and received protection from Viktor Orban in Hungary.
In addition to the sanctions on Grubi and Bedjeti, bans on entry to the US have been imposed on their families.
The US ambassador to Skopje said of the sanctions:
"The sanctioning of Artan Grubi and Enver Bedjeti is proof that political interference in the judiciary cannot - and will not - be tolerated. The United States will continue to name those involved in significant corruption that undermines democratic institutions and erodes public trust. No one is above the law, and accountability is essential for progress." I BGNES
