Testimony from the violence in the Municipality of Centar: Demonstrators cursed and showed genitalia

With the testimony of the councilor in the Council of the Municipality of Centar, Cvetanka Simonovska, continued the trial of the violence in the Municipality of Centar, and the ordered slaps by the former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski for the former mayor Andrej Zernovski.
Simonovska said that on June 7, 2013, when a session of the Council of the Municipality of Centar was being held, a large group of citizens from the Veritas association, who were coordinated from within – by the councilors of VMRO-DPMNE, stormed in. They insulted and cursed councilors of SDSM and Council President Miroslav Sipovic.

“Each time Sipovic tried to say something, Daniela Rangelova and Tomislav Lazarevski would pick up their cell phones and order the people outside to shout louder. They insulted them using profanities, which I don’t think would be appropriate to repeat them in court. They lowered their trousers and showed their genitals,” Simonovska said during her testimony for the violence on May 7th.

Three days later, when the Council session continued, Simonovska said that the same citizens literally demolished Barrack No. 6 in the Municipality. They threw potatoes, tomatoes, and yelled at SDSM advisors that they will not get out alive. The police who were in front of the barracks did not respond.
The crowd left only after the special police unit intervened, and later representatives of the OSCE and ambassadors also arrived at the scene. At yesterday’s hearing, she recognized Aleksandar Trajkovski, the councilor in the Municipality of Gazi Baba, who said that half the time he spent with his head in the barracks, and with his feet outside. The second person who Simonovska identified, who is a Witness of the SPO, is the accused Mitko Pecev. Regarding him, she said that she had also seen him at other protests, which the defendant shouted in the courtroom and boasted in front of the judge, without getting the right to speak, listing all the protests he participated in.

Asked by the prosecutor Fatime Fetai who ordered the protests, Simonovska pointed to the accused Nikola Gruevski.

– I feel like a collateral damage in the then-Prime Minister Gruevski desire to execute some kind of personal revenge against the then Mayor Zernovski – said Simonovska, adding that it is not clear why only three of the councilors of VMRO-DPMNE were accused, when all the councilors from this coalition participated in the Golgotha, as she called it, they went out among the crowd, jumped on Sipovic’s desk and abused their office rights. During the testimony, Simonovska said that the organized action among the VMRO-DPMNE councilors and the crowd was evident.

Eleven people have been charged in this case. Tomislav Lazarevski – VMRO-DPMNE’s adviser to the Municipality of Centar and Jordan Risteski plead guilty and got probation. The defendant Dimce Krstev is being tried in a separate procedure. In this case, the accused Nikola Gruevski, former Minister of Transport and Communications Mile Janakieski, MP VMRO-DPMNE, Daniela Rangelova and 8 other persons are charged. Rangelova recognized two of the protesters who were loudest at the 2013 violent protest in the Municipality.

Frosina Fakova-Serafinovic