Tetovo, 15 January 2025 (MIA) — The retrial of the Tetovo hospital fire case, in which 14 people were killed when a COVID-19 modular hospital caught on fire in Tetovo on Sept. 8, 2021, has been postponed yet again. This is the fourth time the retrial has been postponed, and the second time that the reason for the postponement is Judge Jordan Velkovski's absence due to illness.

According to MIA's Tetovo correspondent, Velkovski's replacement rescheduled the retrial for March 18, 2025.

The ruling to retry the case was made by the Gostivar Appellate Court at a public session in April 2024, following the initial court verdict of June 5, 2023.

The first attempt for the retrial was on June 26, 2024. It was postponed after Tetovo Hospital officials did not show up.

The second hearing was scheduled for Sept. 25, 2024, but Judge Velkovski postponed it because one of the defendants' counsel was absent.

The third attempt was on Nov. 5, 2024, but Judge Velkovski was on sick leave at the time.

In 2023, the Tetovo Court found Florin Besimi and Artan Etemi guilty of “severe crimes against general safety."

The Tetovo hospital, as a legal entity, was found guilty of “causing general danger” whereas doctor Boban Vuchevski was found not guilty of “failing to act according to health regulations” and acquitted by the court.

Besimi and Etemi were given a conditional sentence of 1.6 years in prison and put on three-year probation. The Tetovo Hospital was ordered to pay a fine of one million denars.

Fourteen people died in the COVID-19 hospital fire on Sept. 8, 2021, and several were seriously injured.

A ten-month forensic investigation into the fire followed, led by the Interior Ministry, the Faculty of Technological Sciences as well as German federal crime police experts.

After the probe was complete, the prosecution in October 2021 said the fire in the COVID-19 modular hospital — which had been set up to hospitalize COVID-19 patients and segregate them from other patients in the Tetovo hospital — was caused by an extension cord catching on fire when a reanimation machine, a mobile phone charger and another device were plugged into it at the same time. mr/