The Prosecutor’s Office has made public the minutes of the statement of 31-year-old Rosica Koceva from Veles, given on 9 September of this year, just several days before she and her father were murdered by, according to suspicions, Rosica’s former partner, 39-year-old Ilija Stefanovski, who afterwards committed suicide. Koceva, in detail, explained the threats and violence she’d experienced the previous months.
As she stated, after they’d stopped living together in October 2024, she occasionally communicated with Stefanovski. She went with him on a trip to Sofia to help him because she knew Bulgarian.
So, on 27 December 2024, there was an argument. Ilija was asking that they renew the relationship, but when she refused and tried to open the car’s door, he told her, “You will be mine or you will be dead”.
Ilija afterwards called Rosica and told her to come to his home in Gjorce Petrov, to which she agreed only on the condition that his mother was there too. Though he called his mother, Rosica stated, at the same time, he started harassing her and hitting her all over her body.
“He locked me inside his home, but I cannot recall for how long I was closed considering I didn’t have a phone with me”, Rosica explained.
According to the minutes, based on Rosica’s statement, he was acting violently towards his mother, too, pushing her. Rosica was begging his mother to call the police, but her phone, too, had been taken away by Ilija.
The next day, she told him that if he set her free, she would try to ask for help for them to renew the relationship, so he agreed. In the closing part of the statement, Rosica adhered to her proposal for Stefanovski to be prosecuted. The murder came soon after the charge.
Chronologically, in April of this year, the Veles Prosecutor’s office submitted an indictment proposal against Stefanovski. The proposal covered two events: endangering the safety, on 20 February, and violence, the night between 3 and 4 March, when Rosica’s partner suffered a lighter bodily injury. The psychiatric expertise showed Stefanovski didn’t have a mental illness and that he was fully sane.
A month later, on 18 May, she filed a new charge, one concerning non-enforcement of a court verdict because, despite the additional measures for protection against domestic violence, he continued harassing her.
On 26 June, the Prosecutor’s Office issued orders to the Interior Ministry for gathering evidence from telephone communication and for securing four video materials from different locations in Veles.
On 9 September, Rosica again gave a statement at the Prosecutor’s Office in Skopje, where she stated that she adhered to the proposal for criminal prosecution of Stefanovski.
As early as the following day, the Basic Court in Veles abolished nearly all measures of precaution, while only the restraining order concerning Rosica and her partner remained in force.
Just five days after the verdict, Rosica and her father were found dead. Commenting on the case, SDSM has said that the double murder clearly proves the “systemic collapse of VMRO-DPMNE” and institutions not being interested in citizens and protecting domestic violence victims.