Families of two ethnic Albanian football hooligans who in June stabbed and killed 21 year old Nikola Sazdovski – Sazdo are preparing protests in front of the Skopje courthouse on Tuesday. At a time when an amnesty law is being implemented for political prisoners, the Bela and Demiri families say that they don’t want their sons to be sentenced as murderers.

Sazdovski, an ethnic Macedonian, was killed in front of his girlfriend during an ethnically heated moment in the political crisis which has gripped the country. One of the attackers fled the country as the police was hesitating to make the arrests or even announce to the public the details of the attack. The two others tried to portray the murder as an accident, even though the prosecution said Sazdovski was being stalked and deliberately attacked.

– We call on all citizens to join our protest for justice, because based on the evidence our boys can’t be prosecuted as cruel murderers. We want the court to give equal justice for everybody and not give mercy to ones but not the others, based on political pressures or ethnic background, the two Albanian families say in their call to protest.