Kosovo police have arrested Sulejman Osmani, suspected of involvement in the two-day shootout in Kumanovo, Macedonia, in May, and wanted by the authorities in Macedonia.
Kosovo Police arrested Sulejman Osmani, aka “Commander Sula”, on Tuesday, acting on an arrest warrant issued by the Macedonian police.
Osmani is suspected of having taken part in an armed battle in May against Macedonian special police in a densely populated outskirt of the town of Kumanovo.
The fierce fighting left eight Macedonian officers and ten armed men dead, while an additional 35 police were wounded.
“Yesterday, Kosovo police arrested a suspected person S.O., suspected of involvement in the Kumanovo case”, Baki Kelani, Kosovo Police spokesperson, said.
The suspect was arrested in Letnice village near Viti\Vitina, in eastern Kosovo. “We have found and confiscated a TT pistol and some ammunition,” Kelani added.
Osmani was initially arrested by the Macedonian police after the shootout but managed to escape several days later, when police brought him to the mountainous terrain near the border with Kosovo where he was to pinpoint the location of a hidden weapon stash.
Macedonian authorities said they hoped Osmani would soon be extradited to Macedonia.
Heavy fighting took place in the Divo Naselje neighborhood of Kumanovo after police raided the town apparently on a mission to prevent a terrorist attack.
The part of the town where the fighting took place was left devastated and its residents remain confused about the reasons for the attack and the police raid.
Macedonian police said they raided Kumanovo to capture the same terrorists who earlier attacked a police outpust close to the Kosovo border. A shadowy group on the internet claimed responsibility for both attacks.
The raid in Kumanovo came amid a tense political situation in Macedonia, where opposition leaders have organized protests calling for an end to the government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.
Tapes published by the opposition earlier this year have revealed an intricate web of corruption, bribery and manipulation.
Opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev voiced concerns after the bloodshed in Kumanovo that the Gruevski government was using the shootout to distract attention from the political crisis in the country.
Meanwhile, Macedonia’s junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, continues to demand an international investigation into the case, saying only such an investigation would be credible and determine the motives and the details behind the whole affair.
“The truth should come out. The investigation must be in close cooperation between Macedonian and Kosovo authorities, and if need be, international help should be engaged,” Artan Grubi, the chef-de-cabinet for the DUI head, Ali Ahmeti, told BIRN.
Macedonia’s own institutions are now compromised by the illegal wiretapping scandal revealed by the opposition which alleges, among other matters, systematic political interference in the appointment of judges and prosecutors, as well as in court decisions.
Last month, after German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama asked for an international and independent investigation into the shootout, Macedonia’s public prosecutor, Marko Zvrlevski, said that the country’s own institutions “have the capacity to conduct an independent and competent investigation”.
The Macedonian Interior Minister, Mitko Cavkov, has echoed this line.
