Appellate Judge GjokoRistov, pleaded not guiltyThursday to the crimes he is charged with, after the police found EUR 350,000 hidden in his parents’ home in Negotino, at the start of his trial in the Criminal Court.
“I do not feel guilty for either the first or the second crime, given the legal qualification,” Ristov told the court.
Prosecutor IskraHadziVasileva, on the other hand, claims that Ristov knowingly took actions contrary to the responsibility to which the court robe calls him. The prosecution, as stated, will prove that Ristov, as a judge in the Appellate Court, provided false information about his financial situation, and will also prove that he concealed information about the defendant’s assets. It will be proven that Ristov used the part of the house where the money was found, which was hidden, according to the indictment, behind kitchen cabinets.
On behalf of Ristov, defense attorneys ZvonkoDavidovikj and DushkoJankovikj were present in the courtroom Thursday. Davidovikjsaid that “fortunately, emotions do not speak in the courtroom, but the coolness of the evidence speaks.”
Davidovikj said that during the procedure, the defense will prove to the court the legal origin of the property of the defendant’s parents.
On April 17, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) announced that several actions and searches were taken, during which on January 18, 2026, a total of EUR 350,000 were found in the Negotino-based home of the parents of a judge, the origin of which he had no proof of and did not report.
“The money was found packed in 13 individual packages, a total of 610 banknotes in denominations of 500 euros and 225 banknotes in denominations of 200 euros, some of which were marked with handwritten amounts of the funds, hidden in a walled space in the brick cavities in the wall of one of the rooms. This raised reasonable suspicion that this suspect, in the period from 10.02.2020, as an official judge at the Skopje Appellate Court, contrary to the legal duty to report his property status or its change, provided false information about his property and the property of his family and did not report property, which greatly exceeds his legal income,” the Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
The PPO informed that since the initiation of the procedure, the public prosecutor has taken several actions, with which he has provided solid evidence regarding the ownership of the funds. The trial is being led by Judge BiljanaKocevska. The next hearing is scheduled for June 9.
