Every one of them pleaded not guilty. Artan Grubi, Metodija Dimevski, Skender Mehmeti, Bojan Janev, Fatmir Ramadanovski, Aleksandar Dimitrioski, Bashkim Avdiu - and Perparim Bajrami, who spent two years on the run and only took his seat in the courtroom after turning himself in. The damage to the State Lottery, according to the amended indictment proposal, comes to around 9.7 million euros.

The original figure was 8.2 million. The prosecution revised it upward by about a million and a half euros before the trial properly began. That is the difference a year of work on a single case makes - and a measure of how deep they dug into something that first looked smaller.

Who Bajrami is

Born on 10 February 1993 in Kumanovo, he lives in the village of Vaksince. He studied business informatics. Before entering public office he worked in marketing - designing flyers and brochures, media monitoring. In 2018 he was a political adviser in parliament. He then worked at the Ministry for Political System and Relations Between Communities, under the then first deputy prime minister Artan Grubi, who today sits on the same defendants' bench.

In 2020 he was appointed a member and deputy chair of the State Lottery's management board. From January 2022 to August 2024 he was its director general. The Skopje prosecution is running four more investigations against him for abuse of office, still at the stage of gathering evidence and commissioning expert reports.

What actually happened

According to the indictment proposal, the defendants knew the State Lottery had no right to independently run electronic games of chance on video lottery terminals. Back in 2013 that right had been contributed as a non-cash stake worth 6,244,898 euros when the company was founded with Casinos Austria, leaving the Lottery with a 51 percent share.

Even so, on 9 May 2023 Bajrami submitted to government secretary general Metodija Dimovski a memo on the need for activities to run the games independently. On 6 June, Dimovski proposed it as an addition to the agenda of a government session - contrary to article 119 paragraph 2 of the rules of procedure, without returning it to the submitter. Grubi chaired that session, acting as the shareholders' assembly of the joint-stock company. The item passed. The public procurement of video lottery terminals went ahead.

The measures and the deadlines

Since 9 September, Bajrami has been held at the Shutka prison. Grubi is under house arrest - and that is the only measure imposed in the entire case. Because this is an indictment proposal rather than a full indictment, the deadlines are shorter, so that measure too is expected to lapse in about a month.

Grubi and Bajrami fled to Kosovo in December 2024. Grubi surrendered in February 2026, Bajrami later - the court had already ruled he would be tried in absentia. In the courtroom, when Grubi arrived from detention, the two greeted each other. Their first meeting since the escape.

From one to five years

The offence is abuse of official position and authority under article 353 paragraph 5 of the criminal code. The prescribed sentence runs from one to five years in prison. Nine million seven hundred thousand euros of damage to a state enterprise, eight defendants, two years of flight abroad - and a range of one to five years.

The lawyer for the State Lottery, as the injured legal entity, said the company has claims but will decide separately whether to pursue them within the criminal proceedings or through a separate civil suit. So even getting the money back is, for now, an open question.