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Skopje: The families of the victims of the modular hospital demand the dismissal of prosecutor Joveski

2023-09-15 15:58:11, Kosova & Bota CNA

Skopje: The families of the victims of the modular hospital demand the dismissal

The relatives of the victims of the Tetova modular hospital tragedy protested on Friday in front of the Public Prosecutor's Office building of North Macedonia, demanding the dismissal of the chief state prosecutor Lubomir Jovevski.

In September 2021, 14 people lost their lives in a fire that broke out in the modular hospital in Tetovo, where they were being treated for COVID-19.

The two directors of the modular hospital were sentenced by a court in Tetovo to one and a half years of probation for this case.

Protesters said on Friday that the trial in this case leaves room for suspicions that investigations into the causes of the fire "were hidden in order to prevent the truth from being revealed".

The fire was caused by an electrical cable in the late hours of the night of September 8, 2021.

"We family members urgently demand that a new judicial procedure be opened for the causes of the fire, to re-examine all the decisions from the preliminary trial in the Tetova court", said a family member of the patient who died in the Tetova hospital.

The director of the hospital, Florin Besimi, and the former economic director, Artan Etemi, were found guilty for not placing information signs in the areas of the hospital facility and fire extinguishing equipment.

But a research by the Network-Laboratory for Investigative Journalism – IRL, entitled “Murder in Tetovo” found that modular hospitals for COVID-19, including the one that burned in Tetovo, were built “inappropriately bypassing many legal procedures. "

The organizer of the protest said that the judicial process "has proven that the judicial bodies are the biggest defenders of organized crime and are holding the state hostage, therefore we ask the government to dismiss the head of the prosecution, and together with other judges and prosecutors to answer criminally".

"People are outraged and will continue to demand justice. They want to live in a normal state that is functional and has security for everyone. In this country at the moment we do not feel safe", said the activist Elmedina Abdullahu.

Another protester said that "selective" judiciary operates in North Macedonia, which, according to him, comes into expression "especially when it comes to people in power".

"The judiciary and together with politics are the only ones that do not work here as they are linked to crime and corruption. Without improving the situation in the judiciary, we will not have a state. Everyone should know this. We can protest every day, today, tomorrow and so on, but if all of us do not walk here, there will be neither justice nor state", said another protester.

Regarding this serious event, which had caused numerous reactions and protests, on September 10, 2021, the Minister of Health, Venko Filipçe, resigned, but his resignation was not accepted by the Prime Minister at the time, Zoran Zaev./ REL