The April 27 amnesty reached Smilkovci and Diva Naselba

There will be reconciliation in the Parliament, and there will be no amnesty, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said Tuesday. He emphasized that the coordinative body will work on overall current reconciliation, as well as the perspectives in Macedonia.

“As soon as decisions are made, we will announce them to the public. The April 27 events are a great opportunity to build this reconciliation. There are many good and democratically known modalities of how to do it, but through the system and through this coordinative body. It is good that it starts with the parliament as the peak of democracy and the highest institution in the Republic of Macedonia so that we can expect it down to the municipalities, even to the last cell of our society – the family,” said the president of the government.

The call for reconciliation he offered from the parliamentary pulpit, which resulted in the submission of a law on amnesty by MPs, continues to be subject to various comments and interpretations. Deputy Prime Minister Bujar Osmani believes that the direct perpetrators of violence, as well as the commissioners, must not be subject to any kind of pardon.

“But if there were people who were collateral damage, who found themselves there and did not intend to do harm, and yet they were present, then they should be part of the consideration of the coordinative body,” Osmani says.

The Alliance of Albanians will insist that the amnesty apply to all “tampered political processes in the past ten years”.

“First of all, we are referring to the Kumanovo events and the “Monster” case, Zijadin Sela’s party stated for Nezavisen Vesnik.DUI President Ali Ahmeti also gave statements of reconciliation, leaving room for manipulation. He says we cannot declare the accused for the 27 April events as criminals because the proceedings against them have not yet been completed, nor does he agree that they are terrorists as stated in the indictment.

“I do not agree with the phrase “terrorism”. It is the hardest category of criminal offense in the Criminal Code,” Ahmeti emphasized, judging that neither a judge nor a prosecutor is in place to pardon these people. He concluded that the country is in need of reconciliation, and the highest cost for the April 27 events was paid by VMRO-DPMNE.

In the amnesty bill for the suspects, the defendants and convicts for the violence on April 27, submitted to the Parliament by the main opposition party, foresees the release from criminal prosecution, the stopping of the initiated criminal proceedings and the complete release from serving the sentence of imprisonment of the already convicted persons. Those in prison – would be urgently released. The amnesty would include suspects and accused in court proceedings for committing criminal acts: participation in a mob that would prevent an official person from carrying out official actions, violence, participation in a crowd that would commit a criminal act and a terrorist threat to the constitutional order and security, such as and other criminal and misdemeanor acts in accordance with the positive legal regulations in the country.

The last point is the one that the eight convicted of the attack against Sela are praying for, who serve a total prison sentence of 81 years. They were accused for a separate act: attempted murder, which led to their case coming to a verdict sooner. The remaining defendants for the 27th of April are still being dragged to court. Among them are five MPs in parliament, and three of them were released from house arrest just days before the voting for constitutional changes took place. Krste Mukoski, Ljuben Arnaudov and Saso Vasilevski voted “in favor”, because of which they were urgently excluded from VMRO-DPMNE. They were absent from trial on Monday so they could meet with Zaev. In the “White Palace” they suspect that the three have arranged a way out for themselves, that is, “reconciliation in the Assembly” will only save them, and not the other defendants of the same act.

“The main objective of the bill is an amnesty for all involved in the events on April 27, with the goal of national reconciliation and return to the normal everyday activities in the country,” VMRO-DPMNE said.

They demand a short procedure for the hearing in the Assembly, but the announcements of the majority are that such a thing is not going to happen.

Goran Adamovski