Macedonia men cleared of murder

There were wild celebrations in Skopje after the court verdict

A court in Macedonia has acquitted four men accused of murdering seven South Asian migrants and making it look as if they were members of an al-Qaeda cell.

The presiding judge said there was insufficient evidence against the men, three of whom are former policemen.

The prosecution had alleged that the killings of six Pakistanis and an Indian in 2002 were ordered by former Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski.

He is due to face unrelated war crimes charges at the UN's Hague tribunal.

Mr Boskovski was charged over allegedly committing war crimes during the 2001 conflict between the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian rebels.

'Victory for Macedonia'

Friday's verdict by a court in the capital, Skopje, was cheered by some 100 relatives and supporters of the three former senior police officers and a businessman.

Boskovski is remembered as a hardline interior minister

"This is a victory for Macedonia... But our battle is continuing until Ljube Boskovski is freed," said a mother of one of the acquitted.

During the trial, defence lawyers had argued that the accused were the victims of a plot aimed at embarrassing Macedonia's government at the time.

The prosecution had accused the four men of luring the immigrants from neighbouring Bulgaria before killing them outside Skopje in March 2002.

Mr Boskovski, who holds dual Croatian and Macedonian citizenship, fled from Macedonia after being accused of involvement in the killings last year.

He has said he was not guilty of the charge and had evidence that proved the seven slain men were al-Qaeda operatives, planning an attack on western targets in Macedonia, in concert with Albanian militants.

Mr Boskovski was extradited from Croatia to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague last month to face war crimes charges.