Ministry internal control not investigating Bitola police after Shirok Sokak brawl
Police and the prosecution say the Ministry’s internal control is not investigating officers; the dead man is 39-year-old Jashar I.
The internal control unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not investigating how Bitola police officers acted during a street brawl on Shirok Sokak that was followed by the discovery of a man dead in front of the Bitola hospital, authorities confirm.
The fight was reported at 03:45 on August 31, and police say several people were later summoned for formal interviews. Officials have not clarified whether those talks happened immediately after the incident or only after the case came to public attention.
Video, hospital checks and unanswered questions
A social-media video showing one man dragging another who appears unconscious circulated online; notably, the man being dragged was alive in the footage while the person doing the dragging was later found dead. According to police sources, footage in the force's possession shows the two men walking closely along Shirok Sokak before the quarrel escalated into a fight.
The man who was later found dead was identified as 39-year-old Jashar I, who, police say, moved from Strumica to Bitola about ten years ago after family problems. He was taken by ambulance to the Bitola hospital immediately after the altercation and underwent multiple examinations: psychiatry, neurosurgery, general surgery and was sent for an X-ray, which he ultimately left without completing. Doctors have not disclosed their findings and say the medical records have been handed over to investigators.
An autopsy determined the cause of death as cardiac arrest, but authorities have not yet explained what triggered it. The law enforcement and the prosecution responsible for inquiries into police officers confirm that the internal control unit is not conducting an investigation into the police conduct in this matter. The man shown being dragged was summoned for questioning and released.
Police and the prosecution say there are no new details to share publicly at this time, and key questions remain unanswered — in particular, what happened during the hours after the patient left the hospital and how he came to be found dead in the hospital yard roughly six hours later. It is also unclear in what condition the person who appears being dragged in the video remains.
Biljana Nikolovska Todorova
Photo: press material from the event
