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Ethnically-charged riots in Skopje in March | Photo by: MIA

The court on Friday gave a total of 12 years in prison to the 14 rioters who clashed with police, torched a bus and demolished cars and other property during the ethnically-charged unrest in March this year.

All the defendants, most of them young people, were convicted of “participation in a crowd that committed a criminal offence”.

Five of the defendants were sentenced to eight months in jail each, while one got five months. The highest sentence, one year in jail, was given to a defendant who is still at large.

The others got suspended sentences of ten, six and three months.

The two day protests which gripped the capital escalated into clashes with riot police as ethnic Macedonians rioted on March 1 against ex-fighter Talat Xhaferi’s appointment as the new defence minister.

Macedonians were unhappy to see the former Albanian guerrilla commander become the head of the army that he once fought against.

Albanians came out the following day in an even more violent counter-protest, alleging they had been targeted by mob attacks.

In 2001, Macedonia went through a short armed conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgents and the armed forces.

The conflict ended the same year with the signing of a peace accord that granted greater rights to Albanians who make up a quarter of the population.

Xhaferi was a key figure in the 2001 conflict and a member of the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, which is part of Macedonia’s coalition government led by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.