English
The parents of the delinquent drunk driver who killed a 22 year old art designer Frosina Kulakova in Skopje 10 days ago held a press conference today to apologize to the family of the victim. The parents and their lawyer insisted that the killer, Vaso Jovanov, was on the mend after a drug trafficking arrest and that they did not pull strings to keep him out of prison.
Meanwhile, the Skopje Appeals Court fast-tracked a procedure on Jovanov’s appeal and found him guilty for the cocaine trafficking case and sentenced him to three years and 10 months in prison. The basic level court found Jovanov guilty but only sentenced him to time in a juvenile facility – even though he is an adult. This decision caused outrage in the public and the Kulakov family said that if the judge had done her job and sent Jovanov to prison, their daughter would be alive today.
Zoran Jovanov, the father of the killer, said that his son was attending meetings with a psychologist and went to a monastery that offers treatment to addicts. His mother Ana denied reports that she is close to the husband of the judge who gave a lenient sentence to her son. The parents insisted that Vaso was taking marijuana but not other drugs and that he seemed to be improving. They said that he took the car without their approval – Vaso did not have a license, was drunk at the time of the incident, and had a prior traffic accident where he caused an injury.
The press conference faced calls for boycott from the press after it was announced that lawyer Saso Dukoski plans to play a video recording showing Vaso Jovanov hysterically screaming over the body of the girl he killed. Dukoski called on the public not to demonize Vaso Jovanov and to allow him to have a fair trial, while the details of the accident, such as the speed he was driving with, are being determined. He struck Frosina at Skopje’s main boulevard Partizanska, just before midnight, at a pedestrian crossing that is a popular gathering place for teenagers.
