 The Serbian newspaper "Politika" asserted that the individuals who had allegedly attacked Martinović were members of a local Albanian family who wanted to purchase land that Martinović refused to sell.The claim had considerable resonance in Serbian politics; the steady exodus of Serbs from Kosovo was seen as being the result of deliberate persecution of Serbs by Albanians seeking to drive them off their land and seize their property.Many analogies were made with the Ottoman Turks, who had ruled Serbia until 1833 (and Kosovo until 1912).