Bail of over five million euros, a returned passport, a trip to Serbia and three days of speculation that the man had fled. Now his lawyer says Borče Markovski is back in Bitola, with his family, and that the whole thing was a fuss over nothing.

Markovski is charged with abuses in tenders for relocating the drive stations from the Oslomej mine to the mines in Bitola, worth 1.7 million euros. He is one of eight individuals charged, and his company is included in the proceedings as a legal entity. The trial begins on 2 September.

The chronology is where the story gets interesting. On 15 June, the prosecutor from the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Struga issued a negative opinion on returning the passport. The defence filed a fresh request. The case went up to the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Bitola - and from there came a positive opinion. Same request, two opposite opinions, two levels of the same prosecution service.

The argument that carried the day: the defendant has a company in Serbia whose operations were seriously in jeopardy, and there was a risk of irreparable damage if he did not travel immediately to sign paperwork. The business obligations of a man charged with million-euro tender abuse turned out to be reason enough to hand the passport back.

"There is crude manipulation here by one local public prosecutor from the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office, who is an accomplice in this process. And it will not end this way," Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said during a visit to Bitola, announcing an investigation. He declined to name names.

Lawyer Marjan Nikoloski wants precisely the opposite - the same yardstick for everyone. "I believe this passport return should be standard practice for everyone suspected of this kind of criminal offence under these circumstances, when bail has been posted," he says. He has a point: a rule that only applies to whoever can post five million euros in bail is not a rule, it is a price list.

On 29 July Markovski crossed at Tabanovce. He was held for a police check, then released - because the system showed no active measure barring him. There is no mystery here. Someone lifted the measure, someone issued a positive opinion, someone signed.

The prosecution says every aspect of the decision will be examined and that for now the defendant cannot be considered a fugitive. That may well be true. But an institution that issues itself opposite opinions on the same matter within six weeks has a bigger problem than one passport. Who answers for it if the investigation eventually concludes everything was done by the book - except the citizen's sense that the book changes depending on who is standing at the counter?