We should wait for the end of the process for “Wild Settlement”, which is currently before the Supreme Court in Northern Macedonia, he said today the President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, pointing out that the Republic of Kosovo will give its full support in case of an international investigation and the involvement of external experts in order to find out all the circumstances related to this case.
Answering a journalist question about the “Wild Settlement” case, Osmani said that “everything he says would be political statements, which do not help the case, which is in court.”
– I think we should wait for the process to end and further reveal all the circumstances related to this case. However, at the moment the case is in the high court and after it makes a decision and all legal remedies within Northern Macedonia are completed. But we saw that Prime Minister Zaev himself said that he was ready for an international investigation, as well as the involvement of external experts to review that evidence and in this case, the Republic of Kosovo will give full support and I hope that the co-operation, which currently exists. “There will be a step forward between the two ministries of justice for these issues to be discussed in an institutional way,” Osmani said at a joint press conference with President Stevo Pendarovski.
The defense of the defendants in the “Wild Settlement” case in July this year, at a public session before the Supreme Court in Skopje, demanded that the verdict be overturned and that the case be returned for retrial or that it be acquitted, due to “serious injuries to the criminal procedure before the first and second instance court, the erroneously determined factual situation and violation of the criminal code ”.
For the events in “Divo Naselje” from February 2016, a criminal hearing was held in the Criminal Court against 29 people charged with the crimes of “terrorist organization” and “terrorism”. All 29 defendants in the Kumanovo events pleaded not guilty before the court. The case was later merged with “Lightning” in which proceedings were conducted against eight assistants of the armed group from “Wild Settlement”, which increased the number of defendants to a total of 37.
The Basic Criminal Court announced the first instance verdict in November 2017, and the Appellate Court upheld it in July 2019. Of the 37 accused of “terrorism” and “terrorist organization”, 33 were convicted of the offenses (seven to life imprisonment and the remaining 26 to 12 to 40 years in prison), and four were acquitted.
In a shootout in May 2015 in the Kumanovo settlement of Divo Naselje, eight members of the Macedonian security forces lost their lives, and ten members of the armed group were killed.
Source: MIA
