Vanja Gjorcevska Trial Continues

At Friday’s hearing in the trial over the 2023 kidnapping and murder of teenager Vanja Gjorcevska and Pance Zezovski, Dejan Dimovski, Chief of the Skopje Internal Affairs Sector’s Violent Crime Unit, said that the girl’s father, defendant Aleksandar Gjorcevski, had been caught on a Safe City camera two hours after the kidnapping, at 9:15 am on 27 November, passing the Aleksandar Palace Hotel and driving towards Kacanicki Pat Street.

That’s the same route previously used by the Citroen and Renault Kangoo vehicles, after the kidnapping of the girl. Also, Dimovski testified that during the interrogation, Gjorcevski was asked how he’d been able to know which direction to take in his attempt to locate his daughter. He explained that based on crime movies, he’d concluded that the kidnapper always drove towards the closest borders, according to Dimovski, who nonetheless said the father had added that he hadn’t gone there because there’d been a traffic jam.

“It was strange. He was predicting events. First, he said she’d been kidnapped and then murdered. [Defendants] Velibor Manev and Bore Videvski said they knew that Vanja’s father had told [principal defendant Ljupco Palevski aka] Palco the girl would be alone when she would be going to school. That made us more suspicious. They didn’t know why the father would be involved,” the Unit Chief stated.

According to him, based on those statements and by reasonably observing all those circumstances, police were able to conclude that there were suspicions about him. In the phone of Vanja’s mother, Zorica, the Sector found a message, that is, a screenshot of communication between Vanja and her father on social media, sent a night before the kidnapping, in which Aleksandar said in that it would be cold the following day, which is why she should dress warmly.

Dimovski also referred to a message deleted from a Viber group of parents of Vanja and her classmates in which Aleksandar had written “Name the price”.

According to the Chief, Dimovski obviously made a mistake, that is, got the groups mixed up.

On the other hand, Gjorcevski’s lawyer, Vladimir Tufegdzic, stated that was not true. At the hearing, it was revealed that that Safe City camera videos show Palevski driving the Renault Kangoo. The other defendants, Manev, Videvski, and Vlatko Kesisov, said they’d told police they had acted according to Palevski’s instructions. The trial will continue on 13 November.