Today marks eight years since the five-time murder at Smilkovo Lake. On April 12, 2012, on Thursday, four youngsters aged 18 to 21 from Skopje’s Radisani, Filip Slavkovski, Aleksandar Naqevski, Cvetanco Ackovski and Kire Trpkovski, as well as Borce Stevkovski, aged 45, from the village of Cresevo, were murdered.
The murders took place between 19:30 and 22:30, when the bodies of the victims were found.
The autopsy on the victims showed that three types of firearms they had been shot with, as cartridges of three different types of ammunition had been found, suggesting that there was more than one perpetrator.
During the so-called “bombs” and for a long time after that, Zoran Zaev, then the leader of the opposition, and afterwards prime minister, even used this tragedy to gain political points. In the blind battle for power, Zaev trampled on the feelings of parents who lost their children in the most morbid way possible.
