Macedonian authorities have pressed terrorism charges against five men accused of belonging to a radical Muslim group and involvement in the murder of five people near Skopje in April, Minister of the Interior Gordana Jankuloska said on Wednesday, according to Agence France Presse.
Three men are charged as direct perpetrators while the other two are charged with aiding the murders, Jankuloska said, adding that two of the five perpetrators were at large.
Macedonian police on Tuesday arrested a total of 20 men believed to be members of an extremist group and suspected of terrorism and arms smuggling.
On April 12, four men aged 18-20 and a 45-year-old man were found dead at a popular angling location in Skopje's northern suburb of Radisevo. The murders sent tensions between Orthodox Macedonians and ethnic Albanians running high.
Those tensions had started in February when a Macedonian police officer off duty killed two young Albanian men in the northwestern town of Gostivar. That triggered the worst violence since 2001, when the country came very close to a civil war.
In the first half of March, gangs of young men attacked buses in Skopje and other towns, injuring at least 15 people. The police arrested more than 30 suspects at the time, after which the violence started subsiding.
Albanians account for 25 percent of Macedonia's population.
