Balkanalysis.com

04/16/2007: Extorted Businessmen Vow Revenge from behind Bars

04/16/2007: Extorted Businessmen Vow Revenge from behind Bars

(Balkanalysis.com Security & Intelligence Brief 21) A new headache for Ali Ahmeti and the upper leadership of the DUI in Macedonia is likely to come in the form of several disgruntled Albanian businessmen, most hailing from Tetovo, who were imprisoned for petty corruption charges during the 2002-2006 SDSM-DUI government.

Like many prominent figures from the ethnic Albanian community, these men, according to sources close to Skopje’s Idrivizo Prison numbering 4-6, were shaken down by Ahmeti during the 2001 war. Forcibly ordered to “contribute� to Ahmeti’s so-called National Liberation Army, the businessmen handed over tens of thousands of euros to the war effort.

While it has proven impossible to get all of the details of what happened afterwards, our sources report that the Albanian businessmen were silenced by imprisonment when Ahmeti’s paramilitary group was transformed into a political party, the DUI, with the Sept. 2002 parliamentary elections.

However, with the change in government last summer, these politically-motivated detentions have been reviewed and the businessmen, all held at Idrizivo, should all be released by summer. “They are mad, and they want their money back from Ahmeti,� said one source with knowledge of developments at Idrizivo. “And they will get it, one way or another.�

This development comes at a particularly sensitive time for the embattled political leader, who continues to be frozen out of power, though international calls for “dialogue� between DUI and the coalition leader VMRO-DPMNE appear to have brought some amount of progress.