The Interior Ministry still doesn't know how Iva Mihailova left the country, and Bulgaria isn't officially looking for her

Iva Mihailova is charged over a traffic accident in which one person was killed and three were injured. The court in Kočani ordered her held in custody for 30 days, the Interior Ministry issued a domestic and international arrest warrant, and both of her passports - Macedonian and Bulgarian - had been confiscated earlier, precisely so that she could not leave the country. She left anyway. And to this day no one in Macedonia's institutions can say how.

The Ministry is still establishing whether Mihailova even left through a legal border crossing. According to the Ministry, there is no record of her legally leaving Macedonia, nor of her legally entering Bulgaria - and the same goes for lawyer Nikolay Dimitrov, who claimed he accompanied her. Mihailova herself told Bulgaria's bTV that she left because her health had deteriorated, "with my own personal identification documents". The case is being examined by the Ministry's Internal Control Department.

Sofia answered with its Constitution. Bulgaria's Interior Ministry said that on October 13 at 7:38 pm it received a message from Interpol Skopje requesting a search, arrest and extradition. But, they say, there is no Interpol red notice so far, and the Bulgarian authorities have taken no steps to locate her on their territory. They then cite Article 25 of the Bulgarian Constitution, under which a Bulgarian citizen is extradited only where a ratified international treaty provides for it, as well as the European Convention on Extradition, which lets a state refuse to hand over its own citizen.

The Justice Ministry, meanwhile, is waiting for official notice from the Interior Ministry that Mihailova has been located or arrested before it can even begin extradition proceedings. So the circle is closed: Skopje waits for Sofia to find her, and Sofia says it isn't looking.

Health Minister Sašo Klekovski claims the escape happened just before a Bulgarian medical panel was due to arrive, which, according to him, would quickly have shown there were no medical grounds for treatment abroad. The Interior Minister, for his part, said that "perhaps we should think about" changing precautionary measures for dual citizens - confiscating their ID cards as well as their passports.

The political scene, predictably, turned into a blame-shifting contest. VMRO-DPMNE asks whether Filipče and Zaev promised associates of Rumen Radev a medical report for treatment in Bulgaria. SDSM fires back that "the border is Swiss cheese" and points out that the Interior Ministry is run by Panče Toškovski and the government by Hristijan Mickoski.

The party ping-pong doesn't answer the basic question. If a person with confiscated passports and an ongoing court case can cross the border without leaving a trace in the records, who else can? And who is going to answer to the family of the man who died?