The two North Macedonian citizens who attacked and beat Macedonian Bulgarian Hristijan Pendikov in Ohrid received sentences of 8 months in prison. The Ohrid court rejected the aggravating circumstance that the motive for the crime was ethnically based.

The Bulgarian association "Balkanski Most" in Bitola stated that the judge did not comply with the law and the sentences were too small, BGNES reported.

"On what basis, under what article and point, does the honorable judge sentence them to 8 months, when it clearly states that the punishment should be from one to five years in prison? Has the judicial system failed again or is this a deliberate violation of the law? Pendikov, who was the secretary of the Bulgarian association "Tsar Boris III", which was repressed by the North Macedonian authorities, was brutally beaten on January 19, 2023 in Ohrid by Iliya Spaseski and Borche Angelov.