Gabriela Naunova, whose daughter, Nadica Naunova, was among those killed in the Pulse nightclub tragedy was among those that testified in Monday’s hearing in the Kochani fire trial. She said she had been trying to break the wall next to the entrance in order for air to enter the restroom where the girls had been stuck and for her to go inside to find her daughter.
At one point, one of the defendants, construction inspector Ognjan Gjorgjiev, reacted to her use of the plural form about people that would go to the nightclub (“construction inspectors”), asking whether she had seen him at the Pulse nightclub. She said that hadn’t been the case.
“Are we convicted in advance? Go ahead, don’t try me, shoot me right away”, he said in response, adding that the mother should be tried too because she shouldn’t have let her child go to the nightclub considering she’d been under 18.
His comments were met with a fierce reaction from the other parents. One of them even made a death threat against the defendant. The next hearing will be held on January 14.