13 minutes agoAlil Demiri arrested in Kosovo sentenced to life in northern Macedonia
Periskopi(3 years ago)
(3 years ago)Kosovo police have arrested Alil Demirin, who was wanted with an international warrant issued by the Northern Macedonia Ministry of Internal Affairs for criminal work “terrorism” for killing five young people in 2012 in Skopje, Macedonian police reported. Demiri, 38, was arrested on August 24th in Kosovo, [...]
Demiri, 38, was arrested on August 24th in Kosovo, where he is believed to have been on the run since he was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 by a first-instance court, in the case known as “Monstra”.
The case turned into retrial, and he was again sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in 2021.
The Macedonian Interior Ministry said Kosovo Police have announced 24 August that “Demir will appear before competent Judge”.
It was required at the order of Skopje's Constitutional Court, for carrying out criminal work “terrorism” by Article 394 of the Penal Code, in connection with the case known as “Monstra” of the killing of five Macedonian young people near the Lake Smilkova, in the vicinity of Skopje, on 12 April 2012.
The victims were four young people between the ages of 18 and 20 and another aged 44. Their lifeless bodies were found on the night of April 12, that year by some fishing on the artificial lake.
In addition to Alil Demiri, in this case life imprisonment, brothers Agim and Africa Ismailovic were sentenced. For participating in the murder, Fyzi Ashir was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Hakki Ashir was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Two of those sentenced to life in prison, Alil Demiri and Africa Ismailovici, are believed to have been in Kosovo for many years, but local authorities refused to extradite to northern Macedonia.
Ismailovici was arrested by Kosovo police on April 2nd 2021, based on an international warrant, but the Constitutional Court in Pristina decided to reject the Macedonian authorities' request for his extradition.
The case “Monstra” has triggered numerous protests and clashes in northern Macedonia, due to suspicions that it is “processes mounted by foreign services”.
Albanian political parties, the Alliance for Albanians and Alternatives, have called for international involvement in clarifying the case, but their demand has been rejected by judicial bodies.
Reactions and protests escalated after former Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, while publishing what was known as “the wiretare” in 2013, had claimed that “on the basis of data, the convicts were not the real authors of the” murder of five Macedonians in Smilkova.
