Macedonia: 33 get jail terms over deadly armed clashes

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) - A court in Macedonia’s capital Skopje on Thursday handed down jail terms to 33 of 37 men over deadly armed clashes with police that took place in Kumanovo city in 2015.
Seven defendants got life sentences, 26 others got 12 to 40 years imprisonment while 4 more were acquitted.
On May 9, 2015, an armed conflict between Macedonian police and armed men took place as the police launched an operation to find weapons in Tode Mendel settlement in Kumanovo, near the Kosovo border, mainly inhabited by ethnic Albanians.
The armed conflicts lasted for almost two days, and eight members of the Macedonian police and 10 members of the armed group were killed.
The convicts did not attend the verdict as the judge removed them from the courtroom after they protested against the court proceedings by singing the Albanian national anthem.
During the hearing, a large number of police officers were deployed in front of the court building and a helicopter occasionally flew overhead.
At one point, an unknown man with a bag slung over his shoulder approached police and warned media representatives to step down, claiming he had "an explosive device to activate".
Immediately after that, the man was arrested, but it is not confirmed if he really had a bomb.
The pronouncement of the verdict in this case was originally scheduled for Oct. 17 but was postponed at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs due to local elections in Macedonia.
Ethnic tensions are regular in the multi-ethnic country that declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, where about a quarter of the population of 2.1 million is ethnic Albanian.
In 2001, Macedonians and Albanians fought an armed conflict which came to an end after the signing of the Ohrid Agreement, which gave Albanians more political rights.
But Albanians have claimed that the agreement has not been implemented.