Criminal court decides for “Monstren”

For this murder, codenamed “Monstra”, prosecutor Fatime Fetai, at the session held on January 21st called for life imprisonment for Alil Demirin, as well as the brothers Agim and Africa Ismailovic. For the other two indictees, Fejzi and Hakki Ashir, the prosecutor sought maximum sentence, of nine years in prison, respectively.

The first three have been charged with the <x0terrorism and destabilisation”, while the other two have been charged with doing the work. Another person has been acquitted of prosecution in absence of evidence.

The accused are not terrorists, but with the murder on Smilkova Lake committed an act of terrorism. The conflict and destabilisation of the state have certainly been the motive of the accused. Victims should be Macedonians to lead to the frustration of interethnic relations”, prosecutor Fatime Fetai has declared, Rel reports.

The victims were four young people between the ages of 18 and 20 and another aged 44. Their lifeless bodies have been found about 10: 30 a.m. on April 12, by some fishing at the artificial lake.

This act had then prompted widespread discontent and protests that had escalated into violence in the streets of Skopje by local residents of the Macedonian community, who had attacked their fellow citizens.

Protests are also organised by members of Albanians charged with denying that this serious work was done by their relatives, while even now claim the case is set up by secret services for the purposes of the political class that was at the time in power.

The defense panel has dismissed the prosecution's claims, demanding release from the defendants' prosecution since, according to lawyer Naser Raufi, the prosecution's body has failed to provide evidence of the prosecution's involvement in the act.

You can't even have a motive. It's definitely not who did the crime to know the motive, so we don't have the motive. When you catch the real authors, then you have the reasons for the crime. This can also be evidenced by the fact that of the seven accused, three of them have been released. So they're missing evidence and they're not murderers. This was confirmed by the Supreme Court (this court had turned the course into a first degree), which said these are not authors because you have no evidence. These didn't find any additional evidence, but they also withdrew a cruise witness who had”, declared Radio Free Europe, lawyer Naser Raufi.

But on the other hand, the protection of the victims has expressed satisfaction with the judicial process, stressing also that the process had taken the wrong course following opinion claims that the process is mounted, based on statements by then opposition leader Zoran Zaev, that those accused of this work could not be perpetrators of crime.

Incumbent Prime Minister Zoran Zoran Zoran, as then opposition leader, had published the wiretaps, and had sometimes claimed to have heard phone conversations that cast doubts over the entire case. But such negotiations have not yet borne witness to the occasion.

The “Those words or bugged conversations did not change the actual situation regarding the authors of this work”, stated Dafinka Ivanovska, lawyer of the victims' families.

In addition to numerous witnesses from both the accused and the prosecution and the victims' families, close to 38 thousand telephone and text conversations have been heard and read in this trial.

Some of them have doubts about the five-fold assassination in Smillkova, including those that the act was committed not by these ordinary people, but by professionals of services assigned to destabilise the country.

Zoran Trajkovski, a police officer, was one of those heard in telephone conversations, who about ten days before the assassination, five times near Smilkova Lake, tried to give information to security services that something was about to happen in the country.

Ten days before the assassination, I received information from two sources that an incident would take place about the Easter holiday in which innocent people would be killed. I was told that a police patrol or innocent people would be attacked. I didn't tell them the sources, but at no moment was the Smilkova Lake” mentioned in a conversation by police official Zoran Trajkovski, read in court.

A conversation has also been presented at the court that former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Xhelal Bajrami had with Democratic Union of Integration Chairman Ali Ahmeti, who had informed him that the act in Smilkov was carried out by professionals.

It's obvious they were professionals. I also told the prime minister that it never happened for children to be executed from behind. If someone wanted to destabilise the country, he would attack people in uniform or a police station. They were professionals, who left no trace of the car's” tire tracks, Bajrami declared in the telephone conversation with DUI leader Ali Ahmeti.

The five-fold assassination in Smillkova and numerous dilemmas in the opinion about the motives of the killings, which failed to argue the prosecution, based on the reactions of the protection party, family members, and political parties, will further promote reactions to the opinion, including protests, which have again been warned of the coming days.