Fears have been raised for the safety of a university student studying law in east London who has vanished during a visit to his home in Slovenia. Police suspect “an act of crime” involving 20-year-old Domen Simonic’s disappearance, according to friends.
Now fellow students at Queen Mary University at Mile End are running a fundraising campaign to pay for a search to find Domen, who is an active volunteer organising free legal advice sessions in London’s East End.
He disappeared off the street in Maribor, some 70km from his home town of Celje, east of the Slovene capital Ljubljana, the a day after he arrived on February 21—and was last seen talking to strangers outside a Maribor nightclub.
“The police are searching for him, but there seems to be no lead,” fellow law student Nadia Hafedh told the East London Advertiser today.
“They are treating it as ‘an act of crime’, not just a missing person, and think he may have been harmed by a third party.
“We’re all devastated and worried about him and want him found soon.”
Domen, a member of Queen Mary’s School of Law where he organises a network for east London lawyers as part of its pro bono free legal advice project, was visiting his father Ervin and went out that evening with friends—then vanished outside the club.
“No-one knows what happened to him,” Nadia added. “There was no reason why he would have left. He had a concert that evening at the club.”
Students today held the second of two fundraising collections at the Mile End campus which have so far brought in nearly £1,400 with donations to the Go Fund Me crowdfunding website.
Domen first arrived in London in September, 2014, to study law at Queen Mary’s and has been living in Bethnal Green sharing a rented flat with fellow students, volunteering to organise legal advice sessions for families in need as part of his studies.
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