Decision to place Artan Grubi in house detention rather than prison, after he turned himself in following months on the run, sparks accusations of behind-the-scenes deals.
Sinisa Jakov Marusic
North Macedonia’s former First Deputy Prime Minister, Artan Grubi. Archive photo: Artan Grubi’s Facebook account.
After the Criminal Court in Skopje on Monday night accepted a prosecution proposal of house detention for arrested former Deputy PM Artan Grubi, the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party on Monday said it understood feelings of public outrage over this mild measure.
The party deflected claims that it was behind this move, instead blaming the judiciary, which it said had been corrupted by its predecessors in power, the opposition Social Democrats. “That time is over, and the criminal and embroiled Artan Grubi will be held accountable,” the party wrote in a press release.
The former First Deputy Prime Minister, on the run for 14 months, was detained on Monday morning after appearing at the Blace border crossing between Kosovo and North Macedonia.
Grubi, First Deputy Prime Minister from 2020 to 2024 in the Social Democrat-led government, which lost the elections that year, vanished in late-2024, just after the prosecution named him among the suspects for the embezzlement of more than 8 million euros from the state-run lottery.
After spending most of Monday in detention near the capital, Skopje, the court later ordered him into 30 days of house detention with a 24-hour police watch and loss of travel documents.
Ignoring the fact that he had been a fugitive from justice, the prosecution said it sought a milder measure because Grubi had turned himself in – and because there were fears for his safety if he stayed in the detention prison.
This prompted the now opposition Social Democrats to repeat their accusations that Grubi, who comes from the ranks of their former government partners, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, had negotiated some kind of deal.
“He was on the [police] stop-list. Now, after 14 months at large, he returns and is put in house detention. Who still doesn’t understand this scenario? Nothing is accidental. This is part of a deal between the DUI and VMRO. All that remains is to see what the price is,” the Social Democrats said on Monday.
Meanwhile, people on social networks expressed outrage. “Of course they send him home. He hasn’t been home for 14 months,” one Facebook user commented, cynically. “What a circus!” another wrote.
“Good thing he [Grubi] did not steel cevapi [grilled meatballs],” another Facebook user said, referring to a case from 2015 when a person was jailed for three years for stealing 150 of the much-loved street snacks.
Grubi was a top figure in North Macedonia’s politics for over a decade before 2024. He was seen as an unofficial right-hand man to longstanding DUI leader Ali Ahmeti – and was even seen as a possible successor at one time.
The opposition DUI party has remained silent about Grubi’s house detention. On Monday, it welcomed Grubi’s decision to turn himself in.
Since being relegated to the opposition benches after the 2024 election, the DUI has complained of being unjustly left out of the new VMRO DPMNE-led cabinet, insisting it rightfully deserves a place in it, as the largest ethnic Albanian party in Nort Macedonia.
