Witness Statements and Official Documents Increasingly At Odds As Court Proceedings in the Case of Iva Mihaylova Resume in Kočani

A hearing has begun in Kočani (a town in North Macedonia) in the case against Iva Mihaylova – a story first reported exclusively by Bulgarian National Television (BNT). Since October, the young woman has been barred from leaving her hometown despite having been injured in a road accident and needing medical treatment.

During the first two hours of the hearing, the number of unanswered questions and apparent contradictions continued to grow.

• Two Expert Reports Delay Trial of Iva Mihaylova in Kočani

The prosecution first presented a document issued by the traffic authorities in Štip stating that the speed limit in the lane in which Mihaylova had been travelling was 60 km/h, while the limit for oncoming traffic was 80 km/h. This stands in contrast to a document submitted by the same authority at the previous court hearing, which stated that the speed limit along the entire stretch of road was 90 km/h.

It is unclear how these discrepancies arose. The inconsistencies prompted Mihaylova's defence to object to the admission of the new document as evidence.

The court also began hearing testimony from its first witness – a man who had been travelling in the vehicle that collided with the car driven by Iva Mihaylova. His testimony also contained significant inconsistencies. While he claimed he could not remember what he was doing at the time of the crash, he did recall that they had been travelling from Skopje to Berovo. However, he refused to say whom they were travelling to work for in Berovo and said he could not remember what construction materials and steel angle bars had been transported inside the passenger compartment of the vehicle.

This issue is of particular importance because one of the persons in that vehicle died as a result of the collision.