The hearing scheduled for today at the Skopje Basic Criminal Court in the “State Lottery” case did not take place and was postponed. The trial will continue on November 11, when the next hearing has been set. Former First Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi and former director of the “State Lottery”, Përparim Bajrami, are charged in this process, together with six other persons: Bashkim Avdi, Metodija Dimovski, Skender Mehmeti, Bojan Janev, Fatmir Ramadanovski and Aleksandar Dimitrioski.
All the defendants have so far pleaded not guilty at this stage of the proceedings. The indictment charges them with abuse of official authority. Through this action, they are suspected of having caused the “State Lottery” damage of 596,125,511 denars.
The prosecution in this case is represented by public prosecutors Daniel Kocev and Aleksandar Davchevski. The trial is presided over by Judge Biljana Shuplinovska-Jovevski. The last hearing had taken place on October 30.
At that hearing, Andrej Krstevski, adviser for project implementation at the “State Lottery”, gave testimony. He had previously been a member of the Management and Supervisory Board, as well as deputy director of the company. His testimony focused on how decisions were made within the company and on the procurement procedure for VLT terminals.
Asked by the prosecution about the purchase of VLT terminals, Krstevski said that Bajrami had personally communicated the idea to him. As for the procedure, he explained that he had been informed immediately after it was completed, by members of the commissions responsible for conducting the procedures.
Meanwhile, on November 3, the Criminal Council of the Skopje Basic Criminal Court decided to lift Bajrami’s detention. The decision approved a bail guarantee in real estate worth 1,140,781 euros. In addition to this guarantee, he was assigned precautionary measures, including the confiscation of his travel document and an obligation to appear regularly at the court. The “State Lottery” trial is expected to continue with the hearing on November 11, following the postponement of today’s hearing.