|
Macedonian President Killed In Plane Crash
 |
|
Trajkovski
was in the plane with several staff members (AFP)
|
SARAJEVO,
February 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Macedonian President
Boris Trajkovski and at least two of his closest aides died when their
plane crashed in southern Bosnia on Thursday, February 26, one of his
top advisors said.
All
nine people on board the small plane had died when it went down near the
town of Stolac in the early hours of Thursday morning, the advisor told
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“All
nine are dead. It is confirmed that all nine are dead,” he said.
In
addition to Trajkovski, the dead were identified as chief press officer
Dimka Ilkova Boskovic, advisors Risto Blazevski and Anita Lozanovska,
foreign affairs ministry official Mile Krstevski and security officers
Ace Bozinovski and Boris Velinovski.
The
co-pilot was identified as Branko Ivanovski but the name of the pilot
was not immediately known.
The
remains of a plane were late found along with a number of bodies in
southern Bosnia, Bosnian police said.
“I
can confirm that the wreckage and dead bodies were found in the area
between Ljubinje and Stolac,” police spokesman Nedzad Vejzagic said.
Vejzagic
said it was too early to say how many bodies had been found.
A
spokesman for U.S. peacekeepers in Bosnia said the plane lost contact
with air-traffic controllers near the border between Bosnia and
Montenegro, the BBC News Online said.
The
plane took off from the Macedonian capital, Skopje, earlier on Thursday.
No
Causes
There
are no reports on the causes of the crash.
Officials
in Bosnia said the president's official executive jet appeared to have
smashed into a mountain in fog.
The
Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry said there was heavy rain and fog at the
time of the crash.
“The
weather conditions were very bad with heavy fog and rain,” Zoran
Glusac, a spokesman for Bosnian Serb interior ministry, was quoted by
Reuters as saying.
Trajkovski's
Cabinet chief, Andrej Lepavcov, told The Associated Press that the
European air traffic monitoring agency informed Macedonia's government
that the president's plane had “disappeared off the radar screens”.
“We
know nothing beyond that at this point,” he said.
Since
his election in late 1999, the 47-year-old lawyer's term has seen
tensions between Slavic-speaking Macedonians and large ethnic Albanian
minority in the former Yugoslav republic.
He
presided over a NATO-brokered peace deal in 2001 that ended months of
armed clashes and prevented a full civil war in the mountainous state
bordering Kosovo.
|
