Belgrade – Seven ethnic Albanians were sentenced to life in prison and 21 others to at least 12 years for terrorism and involvement in a 2015 shoot-out with Police in Macedonia.
The Skopje Criminal Court acquitted four defendants on Thursday.
The clash in Kumanovo, a predominantly Albanian town in the north, left eight police and 10 alleged insurgents’ dead, with 40 people injured in May 2015.
Skirmishes continued for two days in what turned out to be the deadliest fight since an Albanian uprising in 2001.
The circumstances of the incident, however, were not fully clarified.
At the time, there were accusations that former nationalist Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s government incited the fight in Kumanovo to divert attention from scandals surrounding his government.
The authorities then accused the “rebels’’ of planning an insurgency with the goal of splitting the mostly Albanian part of Macedonia and joining it with Kosovo, to the north.
Several incidents involving apparent Kosovo Albanian guerrillas were previously reported, mostly along the border.
Ethnic Albanians make up 20 to 25 per cent of the Macedonian population.
Their insurgency for more rights in 2001 brought the country to the verge of civil war, which was averted through a peace-and-reform deal brokered by the West. (dpa/NAN)