Three years after Alfa Romeo arson in Skopje — accused dead or fled, victim still repays loan

Three years after the Alfa Romeo parked in central Skopje was set on fire on 29 November 2023, the case remains tangled in deaths, a flight abroad and unanswered questions — while the owner continues to repay the car loan for a vehicle that no longer exists.

The victim says she received repeated anonymous phone calls before the arson; numbers were always different, hidden or single‑use, and on some occasions a male voice pronounced her name. The last call before the burning was on 24 November. The car was torched during the night, and the owner only learned hours later from police that her Alfa Romeo had been set ablaze and reduced to wreckage.

Investigation, arrests and mounting complications

A few days after the fire, police raided a rented flat and arrested three men: Martin Sipkovski, Damjan Todosievski (nicknamed Zhavolot) and Bomncho Dimovski. Officers seized Damjan’s phone and found footage sent to him showing Martin and Bomncho setting the car on fire, which helped link the suspects to the attack. The victim says she did not know the three and has never seen them in court in the three years since the incident.

Skopje police filed criminal reports naming the suspects and listing the charges. The police notification stated that M.S. (20) from Skopje was reported for three counts related to "causing a general danger," D.T. (35) for one count of "instigation" and two counts of "assistance," and B.D. (37) for three counts of "co‑perpetration," all in connection with the acts of causing general danger. The police also said the suspects recorded the burning on a mobile phone. The same men were later linked to other shootings and car burnings that the authorities merged into a single case in July 2024.

Criminal proceedings broadened: prosecutors pursued an indictment that also incorporated shootings and an arson in the Aerodrom neighbourhood. The chronology became more complicated after September 2024, when Sipkovski was detained for a separate attempted murder (an act dated 15 September 2024), later convicted in June 2025 and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison; the verdict was not yet final and he was placed under house arrest pending appeal.

In October 2025 Sipkovski left North Macedonia with a fake passport. He died on 01 October 2025 around 21:30–21:45 in an apartment on Kosovska Street in Belgrade after inadvertently activating an explosive (pentrite) that had been given to him a day earlier. DNA testing confirmed his identity. Serbian authorities arrested 25‑year‑old Filip V., a Serbian national allegedly linked to the Kavački clan, on charges of illegal possession of the explosive; investigators said the device weighed about 1.5 kilograms and was reportedly intended for use against a known narcotics dealer.

Despite the confirmation of death by Serbian forensic authorities, Macedonian courts continued to treat Sipkovski as alive for procedural reasons: his death certificate took many months to reach the court, and the Basic Criminal Court still summoned him to hearings more than a year after his death. Meanwhile the victim says she has had little contact with prosecutors: she claims she was not invited promptly to give a statement and had to request access to case files herself, where she saw the names Damjan Todosievski, Bomncho Dimovski and Martin Sipkovski listed as perpetrators. The legal process left her without an identified mastermind or motive, and she remains responsible for repaying the loan on the destroyed car.

Photo: press material from the event