The Skopje Criminal Court found all three police officers from Kochani guilty of abuse of office and sentenced Kire Bogatinov and Goran Lazarov to a suspended sentence of one year in prison, and the chief of the Kochani Police Station, Aleksandar Temelkov, to a suspended sentence of two years in prison, which will not be served if he does not commit a new crime within a period of four years.
None of the defendants or their defense attorneys were present at the announcement of the first-instance verdict in the Criminal Court Tuesday.
Judge Lidija Petrovska said that the Court considered the fact that the defendants had no previous convictions, were family people, and that their actions did not result in immediate harmful consequences that could be directly linked to the fire at the Pulse nightclub in Kochani on March 16, 2025.
“The defendants only performed their official duties in appearance. The form was observed, but the essence was missing. Formal action that does not lead to a result does not constitute performance of the duty, but rather its failure to perform. As a result of such action, no misdemeanor proceedings were initiated against the business owner and the responsible person, which enabled them to obtain some material benefit in the form of not initiating misdemeanor proceedings. There is a causal connection between the failure to perform the official duty by the defendants and this consequence,” the judge noted.
