Albanian police have no information about surveillance footage of Gruevski’s escape


 Ardi Veliu, general director of the Albanian police forces, has refused to answer questions from journalists amid growing interest following a statement by Macedonia’s chief prosecutor that surveillance camera footage in connection to Nikola Gruevski’s escape was allegedly deleted.

“This is not the subject of this news conference. We have no information about the matter,” stated Ardi Veliu as reported by the Tirana-based TV station Ora News.

A news conference was called in Tirana involving a large-scale operation that resulted in 32 people arrested, who are suspected of being involved in human trafficking.

A couple of days before the prosecutor’s revelation, it was reported that Albanian authorities to Skopje would hand over footage taken from border surveillance cameras that had captured the moment when Nikola Gruevski ‘got into a car before he passed the border between Macedonia and Albania.’

On Nov. 15, Albanian police said that Gruevski left Albania on November 11 at 19:11 p.m. crossing the Han i Hotit border with Montenegro in a car with register plates CD1013A, owned by the Hungarian embassy in Tirana.

It is still unknown how Gruevski crossed the Macedonian-Albanian border. It is speculated that the former prime minister had either crossed an official border crossing near Debar or an illegal one nearby.