The office of state prosecutors (OJO) issued a statement responding to the investigative TV report about the devastating 2021 fire in the Tetovo Covid hospital that killed 14 patients and their relatives. The IRL media outlet published a report that heaped scorn on the Healthcare Ministry and the politically linked company that built the improvised Covid hospitals, but also on the state prosecutors for not investigating the disaster in full.

The only persons charged with the blaze were the managers of the hospital and a doctor on duty, and the blame was laid on a faulty electric cable – and not against then Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce, who commissioned hospitals apparently built using flammable materials, or former Deputy Prime Minister Koco Angjusev, whose company got the bid.

The allegations that forensics reports prepared by German experts were not used in the case are wholly false. The report was submitted to the parties in the trial. The hearings were open to the public and spreading lies about the trial is entirely deliberate, the office of state prosecutors said in its statement.

IRL also blames Filipce for allowing the contract to be managed by his clerk Vanja Andonova, an architect that worked in his office. After the successful bidding procedure, Andonova went to work for Brako, Angjusev’s company that won the bid.