Sentenced to around 28 and a half years in prison, already once a fugitive from Macedonian authorities, tracked down and extradited from Kosovo - and then released from Idrizovo prison for thirty days of medical treatment. Besim Krasniqi from the Skopje village of Kondovo is unreachable again, and the Basic Criminal Court in Skopje has issued a detention order and an arrest warrant.

The chronology is dry, and that is exactly what makes it damning. In May this year the court granted him a thirty-day interruption of his sentence, based on medical documentation stating he needed a procedure at the Clinic for Digestive Surgery - an operation which, as the reasoning went, cannot be performed in prison conditions. When those thirty days ran out, Krasniqi asked for an extension. On 16 June the court refused, finding that the documentation showed no need for him to remain outside. His appeal was rejected too, and the criminal panel upheld the decision.

Then - silence. On 10 July the director of Idrizovo informed the court that the convict had not returned to the facility within the set deadline. The same day a detention order was issued and an arrest warrant scheduled. So the decision that he would not be staying out was taken in June, and he had still not come back in July. The thirty days were long gone.

Who is the man they released

Krasniqi is a 46-year-old resident of Kondovo and the brother of Agim Krasniqi, publicly known as a figure linked to the so-called Kondovo group that was in the security services' sights two decades ago. In May 2024 he was extradited from Kosovo under an international warrant. The interior ministry said at the time that he was wanted to serve prison sentences for robbery, serious offences against public safety, and an offence relating to preparation connected with terrorism.

So this is not a man the system had no data on. This is a man whose file already contains a failure to return from authorised leave, an international warrant and an extradition. A convict's right to appropriate medical treatment is guaranteed by law and nobody disputes that it exists. Something else is in dispute: who carried out the risk assessment, and what exactly was the mechanism meant to guarantee his return once the treatment ended?

Judging by the outcome, the answer is that no such mechanism effectively existed. The documentation was reviewed, the deadlines were counted, the appeals were rejected - and the man simply did not turn up at the door. Now a warrant is being issued again for the same person it was once issued for before.

If a system loses the same convict twice, the problem is not the escapee. The problem is that between the medical opinion and the prison gate there is nobody who answers by name.