North Macedonia: “Public room” case, on enabling the dissemination of unlawful audiovisual material depicting explicit sexual acts involving a child

2026 marks the 25^th anniversary of the Convention on Cybercrime (also known as the Budapest Convention ).

H ere are 25 selected real cases and operations against cybercrime that speak for themselves on the usefulness and relevance of the Convention and its framework in the daily work of criminal justice authorities worldwide, working on fighting against cybercrime and protecting you and your rights in cyberspace.

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Back North Macedonia: “Public room” case, on enabling the dissemination of unlawful audiovisual material depicting explicit sexual acts involving a child

North Macedonia: “Public room” case, on enabling the dissemination of unlawful audiovisual material depicting explicit sexual acts involving a child

Criminal proceedings were conducted against two defendants for the criminal offence of Production and Distribution of Child Pornography under Article 193-a, paragraph 3 in conjunction with paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code. Both of them were indicted.

According to the indictment, during the period from 19 December 2019 to 28 January 2020, the first defendant, acting as the founder and administrator of the Telegram group “PUBLIC ROOM”, and the second defendant, acting as a moderator and administrator of the same group, although they were obliged to take care of the textual, visual and audio-visual content uploaded to the group by its members, knowingly enabled the dissemination of unlawful audiovisual material through a computer system, and although responsible for administering and supervising the content shared within the group, the defendants intentionally allowed audiovisual material uploaded by another group members, depicting explicit sexual acts involving a child, to remain available and accessible to all members of the group.

A significant part of the evidence basis consisted of electronic evidence obtained from mobile telephone devices seized during the investigation. Following the lawful seizure of the devices, digital forensic examinations were conducted, including the extraction, preservation and analysis of data stored on the devices. The forensic findings revealed communications, user activity records and digital content relevant to establishing the defendants’ involvement in the administration of the group and their awareness of the illicit material disseminated through it.

During the court proceedings, evidence concerning the chain of custody of the devices, the forensic methods applied for data extraction and analysis, and the authenticity and integrity of the recovered digital evidence were presented. The extracted data confirmed the presence and distribution of audiovisual material constituting child pornography and demonstrated that the defendants had knowingly enabled its availability to the members of the group.

On the basis of the electronic evidence, together with the other evidence presented during the proceedings, the court found both defendants guilty of the offence charged and sentenced each of them to four years’ imprisonment. The conviction subsequently became final after being upheld through the available regular and extraordinary legal remedies.

The criminal investigation and conviction in this case were based on key Budapest Convention provisions, notably Article 9 criminalising the production and distribution of child pornography via computer systems. Procedural articles enabled the lawful seizure (Article 19) and forensic analysis of electronic devices, expedited preservation (Article 16/17/29) of digital evidence, and production (Article 18) of user activity records and communications. These measures were crucial for establishing the defendants’ involvement and awareness of illicit material disseminated through the Telegram group.