Albanians Protest Court Verdicts On 2015 Shoot-Out

Dozens of protesters marched in Macedonia's capital, Skopje, on November 5 to decry guilty verdicts against 33 men issued three days earlier in the case of a deadly shoot-out with police that took place in 2015 in the town of Kumanovo. Seven of the men, ethnic Albanians mostly from Kosovo and Macedonia, were handed life sentences. Marching toward a court building in Skopje, the protesters sung Albanian songs and chanted slogans celebrating the UCK, the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla group that fought against Serbian forces during the 1998-99 Kosovar conflict. The protesters demanded an international inquiry into the case, which they say was a conspiracy orchestrated by former security chiefs. (RFE/RL's Balkan Service)