Man Suspected of Strangling His Partner Escaped Police Through a Window in Bitola: She Is in a Shelter, He Is Free

On 10 November at 23:10, a 21-year-old woman from Bitola walked into the Bitola police headquarters and reported that her partner had attacked her that afternoon, around 17:00. According to her report, it wasn't the first time: around a year and a half of beatings, threats and psychological abuse. In the latest attack, as her mother tells it, he strangled her with his bare hands and wouldn't let her breathe.

The suspect, K.U., came to the station voluntarily, together with one of his parents. When officers began the procedure to detain him, he escaped through an open window of the office. Out of a police station. The Interior Ministry confirms it, says the search is ongoing and that the Department for Internal Control, Criminal Investigations and Professional Standards has been notified.

She is in a shelter, he is unreachable

The young woman has been placed in a shelter following an assessment by the Centre for Social Work. Her mother, Beti Angelovska, says they have full medical records, four doctors' reports, including from a neurologist and a psychiatrist, as well as threatening messages.

On 13 November the young woman went to court, where protective measures were due to be decided in proceedings launched by the Bitola Centre for Social Work. The suspect didn't show up. The hearing was rescheduled for 18 November due to improper service: when they tried to hand him the summons, they found his parents at home, who couldn't get hold of him. Criminal proceedings haven't even started yet.

Who was waiting for whom

The prosecutor's office says it was notified immediately after the report. The public prosecutor ordered that the man be called into the station for questioning and asked to be informed as soon as the interview was over. That notice never came. The next day, the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Bitola received a note from the Interior Ministry saying the suspect was "not available". The note didn't say he had been at the station, or that he had escaped through a window.

The Interior Ministry, for its part, says the Bitola police headquarters never received an order from a competent authority for him to be brought in, detained or held in custody. The police say they had no order. The prosecutor's office says it got no notice. Somewhere between those two sentences, the man reported for strangling found the window.

The mother is demanding that Interior Minister Panče Toškovski personally look into how someone escapes from a station full of uniformed officers and how someone stays unreachable for days, while her daughter hides at an undisclosed location. Internal control now has to establish whether the officers failed in their duty.

Reporting is the hardest step a victim takes towards the institutions. If afterwards she ends up shut away in a shelter while the man she reported walks free, what message does that send to the next woman wondering whether to report? And will anyone answer for this before 18 November - or will we be waiting for proper service again?