SKOPJE: A 20-year-old man was arrested in North Macedonia suspected of planning a mass murder, authorities said on Friday, after being tipped off by US intelligence.
Police said the suspect was inspired by the notorious Sandy Hook school massacre in December 2012, when a 20-year-old man killed 26 people including 20 children at a school in Connecticut.
FBI investigators spotted threats on the social app Discord in late January and informed the US embassy in Skopje which contacted the local authorities, police said in a statement.
“The suspect sent a serious threat that he was ready to carry out an attack with a firearm — an AK-47 automatic rifle... while saying that he had impaired mental health,” it said.
Police tracked the message to the village of Mala Recica, west of the capital Skopje, and arrested two people.
The police said the suspect was charged with terrorism, while another, aged 89, was charged with weapons and explosives offenses. Media reported that the second suspect was the young man’s grandfather.
During searches officers seized various firearms, state prosecutors said in a statement.
The police said the weapons included an AK-47, two handguns and hundreds of pieces of ammunition plus body armor, knives and electronics.
The prosecutors’ office said the suspect was remanded in custody for a month.
North Macedonia police arrest man accused of planning mass murder
https://arab.news/j2b68
North Macedonia police arrest man accused of planning mass murder
- Police said the suspect was inspired by the notorious Sandy Hook school massacre in December 2012
- Police tracked the message to the village of Mala Recica, west of the capital Skopje
Proposed EU mission to blocked pipeline awaiting Ukraine approval
- European Union member Hungary has in turn blocked a vital $106-billion EU loan to Ukraine
- “We have proposed a mission to inspect the pipeline to Ukraine,” said Itkonen
BRUSSELS: The EU said Thursday it had proposed a mission to inspect a blocked oil pipeline at the center of a row between Ukraine and Hungary — and was waiting for Kyiv to respond.
Hungary and Slovakia accuse Kyiv of deliberately delaying reopening the Druzhba pipeline, which pumps Russian oil to the two landlocked states and Ukraine says was damaged by Russian strikes in January.
European Union member Hungary has in turn blocked a vital 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) EU loan to Ukraine as well as a fresh round of sanctions on Russia.
“We have proposed a mission to inspect the pipeline to Ukraine,” Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a spokeswoman for the European Commission told journalists in Brussels. “We are awaiting their response.”
The suggestion of an EU fact-finding mission came on the back of two weeks of “intense discussions and contact with Ukraine on this issue,” she added.
On Wednesday, Budapest said it had sent its own mission to assess the pipeline and hold talks with Ukrainian authorities — only for Kyiv to deny there were any discussions planned.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week it could take four to six weeks to make the pipeline operational again.
The dispute comes as Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has ramped up political attacks on Ukraine ahead of a closely fought parliamentary election in Hungary on April 12.
Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has also urged the 27-nation bloc to suspend sanctions on Russian oil and gas to counter rising prices since the Middle East war erupted.
