Alsat-M Operations Director Found Dead in Skopje

Lirim Hajredini (38), operations director of the television network Alsat-M, was found dead on Thursday morning in central Skopje, outside the building that also houses the broadcaster’s offices. The investigation, overseen by the public prosecutor, is currently weighing three possibilities: suicide, homicide and accident. Hajredini had spent sixteen years running the business side of the first national Albanian language television station in North Macedonia, and the death of a senior media executive in a neighboring country whose political and media life is followed daily in Serbia has so far come with no official word on the cause.

North Macedonia’s Interior Ministry released only what had been established at the scene:

Today at around 9:25 a.m., the Skopje Interior Affairs Sector received a report that a person with injuries was lying in front of a building on Krste Misirkov Boulevard in Skopje. Police officers from the Bit Pazar police station responded to the scene and established that the person was L. H. (38) of Skopje, who had died of the injuries sustained. Death was confirmed by an emergency medical doctor. The public prosecutor was notified and an on site investigation is underway.

In that statement, the ministry identified the deceased only by his initials and offered no assessment of how the injuries occurred. His identity was confirmed later, through reporting by Macedonian media.

What is known about the circumstances

The report came in on August 13 at around 9:25 a.m. The location was Krste Misirkov Boulevard, close to the Mavrovka shopping center in the heart of Skopje. Officers from the Bit Pazar police station responded, and an emergency medical doctor pronounced Hajredini dead at the scene.

According to police, Hajredini fell from one of the upper floors of the building, which also houses Alsat-M’s offices. The surrounding block was cordoned off while the on site investigation was carried out under the prosecutor’s order and supervision. The body was then sent for autopsy, and the findings are expected to answer the question of cause and circumstances.

Until then, none of the three scenarios has been ruled out. Police have not said, at this stage, which one they consider most likely, nor have they disclosed whether there were any witnesses inside the building.

Who was Lirim Hajredini?

Hajredini spent more than sixteen years as operations director of Alsat-M. At the network, he oversaw the business side: management, marketing, business strategy and television production.

Before joining the broadcaster, he worked at the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation, a nongovernmental organization based in Skopje. He also worked as a translator of professional and technical literature.

His career, then, was built from three distinct strands: the civil sector, translation and commercial television. He spent most of his working life in North Macedonia’s media industry.

Alsat-M is the first national Albanian language television station in North Macedonia. That makes the role of operations director more than a business position at a single company: it placed Hajredini at the top of a broadcaster serving the country’s largest minority community, a post he held for more than a decade and a half.

What comes next

The next step is the autopsy report, followed by the public prosecutor’s decision on how the case proceeds. Until that happens, the only official information about the death of Alsat-M’s operations director remains what the Interior Ministry stated in its scene report: that a 38 year old man died of the injuries he sustained, and that the on site investigation was carried out with the prosecutor informed.