At the continuation of the Kochani fire hearing on Monday, Goran Ignovski said he hadn’t issued a fiscal receipt regarding the pyrotechnic devices because he had bought them in Bulgaria and they hadn’t been formally intended to be sold.
However, he sold eight of them to DNK members in Skopje. Defense attorneys for the people who, as part of the Economy Ministry, issued the license for the nightclub in 2012, reacted to his testimony, asking whether he should be tried for smuggling the devices and whether the charge was selective. However, the representative for the Prosecutor’s Office, Darko Jakimovski, said the pyrotechnics hadn’t caused the deaths, but rather the people had died because they had nowhere to escape.
Other witnesses testified, too. A Rubicon security agency employee said that after the March 16, 2025, tragedy, he’d been ordered by the owner to pay salaries to employees.
When it comes to the accountant in charge of Rubicon’s financial affairs, she nonetheless said there was no contract in writing between the Pulse nightclub and the security agency. Also on Monday, Parliament said it would hold on March 12 a commemorative event marking the first anniversary of the tragedy.