Months after the stabbing of a Bulgarian football fan in Skopje, the police finally made a single arrest.

A.D. (21) from Skopje was arrested when entering Macedonia from Albania, at the Struga crossing. He is charged of being part of the crowd of Shverceri – Albanian nationalist fans of the football club Shkupi – who attacked two vehicles with fans of the Bulgarian club Levski. The match, played in late July, was considered high risk because of the tensions over identity and historic issues between Macedonia and Bulgaria. But the major incident happened between Albanians and Bulgarians, as several cars with Bulgarian fans drove into the mainly Albanian central district Cair.

A gang of Albanian football fans swarmed the vehicles and some of them, armed with knives, stabbed at the Bulgarian fans, badly injuring one of them. No arrests were made until today, leading to allegations that the powerful First Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi, who was leader of the Shverceri and often used them in nationalist stunts, is protecting the group.