Levica: From alleged million‑denar crimes to a five‑year charge — VMRO‑DPMNE lowered its promise of justice for Grubi

The opposition party Levica accused VMRO‑DPMNE on Saturday of lowering its own anti‑corruption rhetoric after an investigation into Artan Grubi that began with allegations of massive embezzlement ended with a much milder criminal charge carrying a maximum prison term of five years.

Levica reminded the public that the Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation on 16 December 2024 into alleged embezzlement in office, saying the gathered evidence pointed to unlawful gain amounting to 501,319,119 denars. The party said prosecutors themselves announced on 24 February 2026 that the probe continued precisely for embezzlement and that most of the required evidence had already been secured.

"Even more interesting: on 24 February 2026 the same Prosecutor's Office publicly announced that the prosecution against him continues precisely for embezzlement and that after the investigation most of the necessary evidence had been secured," Levica said.

Levica then posed a direct question to the Prosecutor's Office about the apparent weakening of charges: "Well now the public has the right to ask how the evidence that was secured then disappeared in their legal analysis over six months and how an investigation for an offense punishable by at least four to twenty years ended with an indictment for an offense whose penal range goes up to at most five years?"

Party demands clarification from prosecutors

The opposition accused VMRO‑DPMNE of turning Grubi into the centerpiece of a theatrical anti‑corruption campaign — with press conferences, talk of million‑denar scandals and promises of vigorous accountability — and said the final indictment is a crushing disappointment compared with that rhetoric.

"Grubi became a poster child for VMRO‑DPMNE, was unreachable for about 14 months, they failed to secure him, he returned, the Prosecutor's Office requested house arrest arguing that most evidence had been secured, and today the loudest symbol of their non‑selective justice enters a courtroom with a legal qualification incomparably milder than the one with which the investigation began," Levica said. "If after all their press shows, threats and pathetic declarations this is the pinnacle of the state's reckoning with high‑level corruption, then Mickoski has built a factory of political noise where big cases enter as spectacle and come out as a cat's cough."

Levica asked prosecutors to explain which element of the initially investigated embezzlement was not confirmed by the evidence, which facts justified reclassification of the offence, and how the evidence that in February was described as nearly fully secured led to the current indictment.

"If VMRO‑DPMNE catches big fish like this, the public has good reason to fear we will again receive the Macedonian classic: spectacle at the start, weakening along the way, and an outcome disproportionate to the uproar that brought VMRO‑DPMNE to power," the party added.

Photo: press material from the event