site.btaNorth Macedonia Appeals Court Upholds Suspended Sentence against Ljubco Georgievski; Lawyer to Appeal to European Court of Human Rights

The Court of Appeal in Bitola has rejected the appeal against the ruling of the Basic Court sentencing the chair of the now-dissolved Ivan Mihailov Cultural Centre in Bitola, Ljubco Georgievski, his lawyer, Naser Raufi, told BTA. Georgievski served as prime minister of his country between 1998 and 2002 and acquired Bulgarian citizenship in 2006. 

The Court of Appeal in Bitola examined the appeal against the ruling of the Basic Court back in May. 

The appellate court thus upheld the one-year suspended sentence with a two-year probation period imposed on Georgievski on charges of xenophobia, racism and dissemination of racial hatred by electronic means over quotes by Ivan Mihailov shared on the association's Facebook page. Ivan Mihailov (1896-1990) was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary in interwar Macedonia and the last leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, regarded as a controversial pro-Bulgarian revolutionary in North Macedonia. 

Raufi has four months to file an application with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. According to him, there were "a number of irregularities" during the first-instance proceedings.

The lawyer had said earlier that if the sentence was upheld, the case would be taken to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where he expects a favourable ruling. He referred to the 2009 judgment of the same court in the case of the banned Radko association in what was then the Republic of Macedonia. "Radko" was a pseudonym used by Ivan Mihailov.

Raufi also said that during the proceedings before the Basic Court in Bitola, the impression was that it was not Ljubco Georgievski who was on trial, but Ivan Mihailov.

The proceedings against Georgievski began in 2023 after North Macedonia's Commission for Prevention and Protection against Discrimination referred the case to the Public Prosecutor's Office over content published on the Facebook page of the Ivan Mihailov association in Bitola, arguing that it "violated the feelings and rights of a large number of people."

The prosecution was also alerted by the Union of Fighters in North Macedonia, and several prosecution witnesses testified in the case, including Lambe Alabakovski, who received a suspended sentence for setting fire to the entrance door of the Ivan Mihailov Cultural Centre, as well as witnesses for the defence.

The final defence witness, former prime minister Ljubco Georgievski, testified voluntarily on May 21. He said he had decided to appear after concluding that the proceedings were being conducted not against Ivan Mihailov Cultural Centre Chair Ljubco Georgievski, but against the historical figure Ivan Mihailov.

Raufi also told BTA that an application would be filed with the European Court of Human Rights over the deregistration of the Ivan Mihailov association in Bitola. He noted that the domestic appeal procedure in that case is conducted before two judicial instances and is also nearing completion.