The Office of the Hungarian Prime Minister confirmed for N1 on Wednesday that former Macedonian Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, has submitted an asylum request to authorities in Hungary.

“The former Prime Minister of Macedonia has made a declaration of his intention to submit a request for refugee status in Hungary. Given that he was prime minister of his country for ten years, for security reasons the Hungarian authorities have allowed Mr. Gruevski to have his asylum request submitted and heard at the headquarters of the Immigration and Asylum Office in Budapest,” the Office of the Prime Minister of Hungary said.

The Immigration and Asylum Office will conduct the asylum assessment procedure in accordance with both Hungarian and international law, they said.

On Tuesday, Gruevski wrote on his Facebook profile that he applied for asylum in Hungary, after he had failed to report to prison to serve a corruption sentence handed to him by a Macedonian court.

Gruevski served as Prime Minister of Macedonia from 2006 to 2016, and in May this year he was sentenced to two years in prison by a Macedonian court for illegally buying a luxury Mercedes car worth €600,000 during his term in office. His passport was seized in 2017.

Macedonian police had issued a warrant for his arrest on Monday.

“Good cooperation between the two countries is an important cornerstone for the development of the Balkans region and the security of Europe. The Macedonian government of the day is a partner of Hungary in interstate relations, and therefore we in no way wish to intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, and we consider the assessment of the former Macedonian prime minister’s asylum request to be solely a legal issue,” the Office said.

They added that, in accordance with law, they would not comment any further before the asylum procedure is completed.

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