Macedonia Minister Quits Amid Child's Death Case Protests

About 1,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, protested on Wednesday in front of the Macedonian government building in Skopje, outraged by the prosecution's last minute decision to drop charges of premeditated murder against an ethnic Macedonian who slammed his car into a four-year old ethnic Albanian child in 2016.

Boban Ilic killed four-year old Almir Aliu in the ethnically charged incident in July 2016 at the general hospital in the ethnically mixed town of Kumanovo.

Protesters in Skopje chanted "No Justice, No Peace" and "Justice for Almir", and carried banners that showed a middle finger to the government and the judiciary.

On Tuesday evening, Macedonia's Justice Minister Bilen Saliji resigned over the controversial decision by the prosecution.

Saliji, who comes from the ranks of the ethnic Albanian junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said that was resigning for moral reasons.

"The judiciary is independent and should stay that way, but I, as head of the Justice Ministry, feel a moral responsibility to resign because of the shaken trust [in the judiciary]," Saliji said.

The incident erupted at the Kumanovo general hospital when, according to the prosecution, two families, one Albanian and one Macedonian, started to brawl amid an argument over who should see the doctor first.

The brawl, which according to the prosecution continued in the hospital yard, ended with the death of four-year-old Almir Aliu.

In hospital video footage released in July 2016, Ilic's car was seen slamming into the boy and his parents, who were also injured.

The prosecution initially charged Ilic with the premeditated murder of the child but at the last hearing at the Kumanovo court on March 15, it changed its...