SKOPJE (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski pardoned 11 jailed ethnic Albanian fighters on Wednesday, launching an amnesty regarded as crucial to sustaining an August peace settlement.
Justice ministry sources told Reuters the 11 were freed from Skopje's grim Sutka detention center later in the day and another 77 on the pardon list would probably be released in daily batches of 11 over the coming week.
The amnesty is aimed at defusing ethnic mistrust, enabling a return of Macedonian police and refugees to the northern Albanian heartland in coming weeks at minimum risk of violence, and helping reintegrate disaffected fighters in society.
It is to cover all former National Liberation Army (NLA) insurgents who voluntarily disarmed under NATO supervision by September 26 and those captured before then, but excludes those who are indictable by the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
The broad amnesty was decreed under strong Western diplomatic pressure last month after weeks of nationalist obstruction within the coalition cabinet and security services.
Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski's cabinet issued an amnesty declaration in October but it was shot through with loopholes and rejected by the Albanian militants and international peace sponsors as a sham.
Skopje was not saying when and where detainees were being freed to minimize publicity for an unpopular move with elections due next year and to avoid exposing ex-prisoners to possible violence by Macedonians who suffered in the war.