Skopje, 30 April 2025 (MIA) - The investigation into the fire at the nightclub in Kochani must conclude within the legal deadline of 90 days, i.e., by June 16-17, Chief Prosecutor Ljupcho Kocevski told Alsat-M in an interview Wednesday. Kocevski said 13 prosecutors are working on the investigation and stressed that it would end within the deadline.

Kocevski said the investigation is focusing on the crime of “grave crimes against general safety” and encompasses the time period between the opening of the club in 2012 and the day of the fire. At the end of the investigation, he said, indictments will be filed clarifying the acts taken by all potential suspects and determining their precise crimes.

“Several institutions are currently involved – the Protection and Rescue Directorate, the municipality as the local government, the State Market Inspectorate and the Ministry of Economy as the issuer of the licenses. They all had certain authorizations, and the team of prosecutors believes that the causal connection is the death of the people in the nightclub. The shortcomings that have led to this happened every year, which means there is causality. They failed to take certain actions every year,” Kocevski said.

According to the prosecutor, the case could be expanded to include new people until the very last of the investigation. 

Regarding Tuesday’s meeting with families of the victims, Kocevski said they posed certain questions which the prosecutors answered, stressing that “everything that had to be shared at this stage, in accordance with the law, was shared”.

Quizzed about accusations that the investigation is politically motivated and the detention measure for Kreshnik Bekteshi, Kocevski said the prosecutors are not keeping anyone in detention without reason.

“What matters about detention is whether he can influence witnesses, repeat the act or flee. In the specific case, the [former] minister [Bekteshi], and some of the other suspects are in detention, but that doesn’t mean they must stay in detention. Up until the moment when public prosecutors assess the conditions exist to order detention, they submit proposals, and then it is the courts that decide whether they will order it, i.e., whether they will extend the measure,” Kocevski said.

Regarding his opinion on the fact that none of the current ministers resigned out of moral reasons, Kocevski said this is a personal decision that he can’t comment on.

Photo: MIA Archive