Warrant for Iva Mihailova, but Bulgaria Says It Does Not Extradite Its Citizens: Can the Defendant in a Fatal Crash Case Be Returned to Court in Kocani?
On October 13 the court in Kocani ordered 30 days of detention and issued national and international warrants; Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry cites its Constitution and the European Convention on Extradition.
The Basic Court in Kocani on October 13 ordered 30 days of detention for Iva Mihailova and issued a national and an international arrest warrant, Lokalno reports. The detention will be carried out as soon as she is found. Mihailova, who holds Macedonian and Bulgarian citizenship, is charged with a serious offense against traffic safety over the October 7, 2025 accident on the Kocani–Tri Cheshmi expressway, in which one person died and three were injured. She is presumed innocent until a final verdict.
Sofia has made its distance clear. On October 14, Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said, according to BTA, that the Bulgarian interior ministry received a message from Interpol Skopje on October 13 at 19:38 requesting her arrest and extradition, but that no red notice has been issued at this moment. The ministry cited Article 25(4) of the Constitution, under which a Bulgarian citizen cannot be extradited for prosecution unless a ratified international treaty provides for it, and Article 6 of the European Convention on Extradition, which allows states to refuse to extradite their own nationals. According to BTA, Bulgarian authorities have taken no measures to establish where she is.
Bulgarian lawyer Bozhidar Terziyski, whose analysis Nezavisen Vesnik reports, explains that arrest and extradition are different things: Bulgaria can refuse extradition while still ordering provisional detention on its territory, which Bulgarian institutions, not Macedonian courts, decide. An international warrant, he says, is not a binding court order, and Macedonia, as a non-EU country, cannot use the European Arrest Warrant mechanism. Mihailova and her lawyer say they crossed the border legally and that she is being treated in Sofia; the Interior Ministry says there is no record of her exit, and Bulgarian border police have no record of a legal entry.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · October 15, 2026
