Prosecutors in Kochani have asked a court to jail 23-year-old Iva Mihaylova, who holds Bulgarian and North Macedonian citizenship and is now in Bulgaria. If the Kochani Primary Court agrees, North Macedonia will issue an international wanted notice and ask Bulgaria to extradite her, the prosecutor's office and the court said.

This story follows our earlier report on Mihaylova's arrival at Pirogov hospital. After that report, interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said Bulgaria's interior ministry would question her about how she crossed the border.

Prosecutors want a stricter restraint measure because Mihaylova is not at the address she gave and has not reported to police. They filed the request as soon as the court notified them. The prosecutor's office said the court can also act on its own, without waiting for a proposal from a prosecutor.

Spiro Borisov, president of the Primary Court, said the court received a notice from the North Macedonian interior ministry on Tuesday at 9:40am local time and sent it to the prosecutor's office at once. He said the procedure is that prosecutors file a proposal, the court decides, and only then is a wanted order issued.

North Macedonian interior ministry spokesman Goce Andreevski said the border control system shows no record of Mihaylova leaving the country. Authorities in Skopje said a check through the joint contact centre with Bulgaria found that Bulgarian border police have no record of a legal entry either. The last entry into Bulgaria in the border records is from September 2025. In October that year she returned to North Macedonia.

Her lawyer, Nikolay Dimitrov, says the opposite. He says the two of them went through an official border crossing and showed documents to North Macedonian officers, so the border was crossed legally. North Macedonian institutions insist that the court restrictions on her remain in force.

Bulgaria's foreign ministry said it had no part in organising her return. Dimitrov had contacted it shortly before the announcement that Mihaylova had arrived in Bulgaria.

Mihaylova came to Pirogov for medical checks and treatment. On Monday she spoke to Bulgarian media, although the case against her in North Macedonia is still going on.

The case is over a serious car crash in 2025 in which one person died. Mihaylova is charged in the case and has severe spinal injuries herself. The defence disputes the prosecution's version of what caused the crash.

On 9 October 2025 her Bulgarian and North Macedonian passports were taken away. She may not cross the border with an ID card or leave Kochani, and she must report to the authorities regularly. The prosecutor's office said the risk that she will go into hiding is the main reason prosecutors have repeatedly opposed giving back her travel documents.

For months, Mihaylova and her lawyers asked the court for permission to get treatment in Bulgaria, but all requests were rejected.

At the end of September she said publicly that her health was getting worse and the pain would not stop. She accused the North Macedonian authorities of not letting her get treatment abroad. That same month president Iliana Yotova raised the issue with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, and the Bulgarian side pressed for access to the treatment she needs. Mihaylova's health is a topic of talks between the institutions of the two countries, including in diplomatic contacts between Sofia and Skopje.

The defence said it will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over the repeated refusals.