Former police minister Ljube Boskoski was sentenced to 12 years in prison by Judge Ilija Trpkov of the Criminal Court in Skopje for plotting to cover up two murders in 2001, Balkan Insight reported Monday.
Four suspects in the double murder of Marijan Tusevski, a Skopje mafia figure, and his driver, Kiril Janev, who were killed in 2001 in Skopje all received life sentences. The Serbian and Bosnian nationals, Predrag Cubrilo, Milan Ilic, Milorad Kovacevic, Vuk Vukicevic remain at large and were sentenced in absentia.
The judge said that during his time as police minister, Boskoski “promised to cover the traces if Orce Korunovski orders the murder of Tusevski and Janev”, Balkan Insight reported. Korunovski, a member of the Macedonian mafia, was later killed in Bulgaria.
Korunovski and Tusevski got into an altercation over control of striptease clubs in Skopje.
The suspects were charged with planning and carrying out the murder of Tusevski and Janev, and with helping the foreign nationals illegally cross the border near the town of Kumanovo.
Boskoski is serving a five-year term in prison for illegally financing his election campaign after he was arrested in 2011.
His defense said authorities brought up false charges as retaliation against his outspoken criticism of the government.
Several other members of the Macedonian police force have been sentenced in relation to the case.