Four days. That's how long it took police to catch a man who escaped through the window of their own station. Aleksandar Lazarov-Cuna, a suspected drug dealer from Kočani, is back in handcuffs - this time brought in in Skopje, after both a national and an international warrant had been issued for him.

The story tells you everything on its own. Lazarov was picked up last week at the entrance to the Vinica village of Istibanja, along with one other person. During a search of the vehicle, inspectors found and seized a white powdery substance. The next day - he was already out. He escaped through a window at the police station in Kočani, like something out of a film nobody would want to star in.

When a man the police already know well manages to jump out a station window, the question isn't only where he ran. The question is who opened that window for him - literally or figuratively. Internal Affairs at the Interior Ministry is now investigating whether one of the Kočani officers „looked the other way" and helped him flee. The answer to that question is worth more than the arrest itself.

The director of the Public Security Bureau visited the same station these days and declared that „there will be no local sheriffs" and that anyone who helped, allowed or stayed silent about unlawful conduct will answer for it. Strong words. Whether names and suspensions will follow, or whether it stays just another statement for the evening news - that remains to be seen.

Cuna's name is nothing new to the public. He was also mentioned at the trial connected to the Kočani tragedy, where a witness named him as one of the dealers linked to the „Puls" nightclub - a man who, according to the testimony, had been arrested and released more than once. That very „arrested and released" is the pattern that infuriates people more than the crime itself.

Lazarov has now been transferred to the Kisela Voda police station for further proceedings. The institutions have put him back where he should have been from the start. But the real story isn't about how one man ran and got caught - it's about whether a system where suspects are routinely let go will finally show it knows how to hold on to one too.