Skopje, 30 March 2023 (MIA) – The Criminal Offenses Council at the Supreme Court of North Macedonia at a session on Wednesday dismissed  as unfounded requests for extraordinary review of the final verdict in the “Public Room” case.

 “The Criminal Offenses Council at the Supreme Court of North Macedonia adopted a decision dismissing as unfounded the requests for an extraordinary review of the final verdict by the Basic Criminal Court Skopje dated March 11, 2022 and the verdict by the Appellate Court Skopje dated November 21, 2022,” said the Supreme Court in a press release Thursday.

The Skopje-based Criminal Court in March 2022 sentenced Darko Kostovski and Mihail Panevski, creators of the Telegram group “Public Room”, to four years in prison. They were charged for the production and distribution of child pornography.

According to the charges, as creator and moderator of the Telegram group “Public Room”, from December 19, 2019 to January 28, 2020, the two were responsible for the text and audiovisual content shared by members of the group. However, they intentionally permitted audiovisual content depicting obvious sexual acts with a child to be shared in the group.

The group no longer exists on Telegram. The Prosecutor’s Office initiated a procedure for the crime, because during the pretrial investigation in the case, material evidence was gathered which pointed precisely to such legal qualification. ad/nn/

Photo: MIA archive