Kocani 'Pulse' trial continues with defence witnesses and testimony from former Probishtip chief

The trial of 13 police officers accused of failing to follow the operational action plan linked to the Pulse nightclub fire in Kocani resumed with testimony from witnesses presented by the defence. Among those who spoke in court were former head of OVR Probishtip Goran Monevski and several people who were inside the club on the night the blaze began.

Monevski told the court he had been informed that police officers would be deployed in the OVR Kochani area for the weekend of March 15–16 under a previously agreed plan. He said he was told on March 14 that the operation to check hospitality venues had been approved and that he would be contacted by the head of OVR Kochani about the profile of officers needed.

Account of the alarm and the first calls

Describing the moment he learned of the fire, Monevski said a colleague, Darko Miloshevski, called him in a visibly upset tone: "Chief, we are in cabaret Pulse, the disco caught fire, colleague Toshe is missing." He said he called back to clarify and that the colleague then told him: "Chief, there may be one hundred victims, and colleague Toshe is not answering his phone," and asked that they intervene immediately, call ambulances and notify fire services.

Monevski testified that after alerting emergency services he went to Pulse and found officers from OVR Probishtip who were visibly weakened and suffering smoke inhalation. He said he later received information that colleague Toshe had been pulled from the club without signs of life and that many other guests had been taken by ambulance to the hospital in Kochani.

Answering prosecution questions, Monevski said the order for the action had been given orally rather than in writing. "Due to bad experiences the order was given orally, as is allowed by law to be either oral or written," he testified.

Other defence witnesses who had been inside Pulse described the moments of the fire and the attempts to help those trapped. One guest said they arrived about an hour before the blaze and recounted how crowded exits were later broken open. A different witness said he had seen one of the accused officers helping during the night and that some of the accused were positioned outside the venue. A female witness who entered around 2 a.m. said: "When we entered I bought a ticket, we entered and whenever we left we stood at the right bar, the closer side to the exit." She added that at first "when we noticed the fire it did not look like it would be a serious situation, nobody thought it was serious, there was no panic at the start." She said the situation changed after someone named Pancho announced there was a fire: "When Pancho said there is a fire a crowd began to form, people started to exit in panic. I headed for the exit, in front of me they broke the plasterboard wall to widen the way out because there was a big crowd," and described how glass at the exit door was smashed and she became trapped in the crush. She recalled that "a person in uniform tried to pull me out."

The court rejected a defence request to call Lazar Zahariev as a witness because he is himself charged in connection with the same criminal event; as the presiding judge Fanka Jančuleva Mihailovska put it: "The status of witness and the status of accused are incompatible, therefore Lazar Zahariev will not be heard as a witness." The proceedings relate to the March 16, 2025 fire in Pulse nightclub in Kocani that claimed 63 lives and injured many others; the prosecution says the 13 accused police officers did not act in accordance with required duties and the action plan for the venue.

Photo: press material from the event