Supreme Court annuls rulings on tragedy at Tetovo’s modular hospital and orders retrial

The Supreme Court has accepted requests for an extraordinary review of the final judgment filed by the former directors of Tetovo Clinical Hospital, Florin Besimi and Artan Etemi, sending back for retrial the rulings concerning the tragic fire of 8 September 2021, in which 14 people lost their lives.

The decision was issued on 22 October and made public today by the Supreme Court. It annulled the ruling of the Tetovo Basic Court, dated 16 May 2025, as well as the decision of the Gostivar Court of Appeals of 26 November 2025.

Under the appellate court’s decision, both former directors had been sentenced to three years in prison each for the criminal offense of “Serious offenses against public safety.”

According to the Supreme Court, the lower courts’ rulings contain serious shortcomings in their reasoning. In particular, they did not sufficiently clarify the causal link between the defendants’ actions and the consequences of the tragedy, while the evidence concerning the cause and spread of the fire was not assessed comprehensively.

The Supreme Court notes that it was not clearly established which evidence served as the basis for the conclusion that Florin Besimi and Artan Etemi acted as co-perpetrators. Nor was it argued on the basis of which evidence it was determined that, acting jointly, they had failed to provide the necessary firefighting equipment and the hydrant network.

One of the main issues to be assessed in the retrial concerns whether the lack of firefighting equipment caused the flames to break out or contributed to their spread and to the event’s grave consequences.