Almost five years of investigation. Three prosecutors who inherited the case from one another. And in the end - not enough evidence. The Basic Public Prosecutor's Office for Prosecuting Organised Crime and Corruption has closed the case into the public procurement for the construction of 19 modular hospitals, the ones put up at the height of the covid crisis.

The case was opened on 10 September 2021. It was opened because two days earlier, on 8 September, the modular hospital in Tetovo burned down. Fourteen people died, around ten were injured. The prosecution said at the time that it would examine the documentation for the procurement and construction of all the hospitals.

Five years later, the answer is that there is no reasonable suspicion of abuse of official position and authority in the public procurement.

What the prosecution actually established

Prosecutor Verica Beržecka explained at a press briefing that from the analysis of the complete documentation and the checks carried out, the prosecution did not establish facts indicating that officials had used or exceeded their authority, or that they had failed to perform their official duties with the intent of obtaining material gain or causing damage.

The key legal detail: the procurement was financed by a World Bank loan, which means international financing rules applied to it rather than the domestic Public Procurement Act. A World Bank team confirmed in October 2021 that what was delivered met the specified technical requirements.

The case was first assigned to prosecutor Vilma Ruskovska, then passed through Elizabeta Josifovska, before finally landing with Beržecka. Three prosecutors, one case, five years.

A closed case is not an acquittal

This is the distinction that gets lost fastest in the political noise. The prosecution did not say everything was fine - it said there is not enough evidence for criminal prosecution. Those are two different things, and anyone who conflates them is doing it on purpose.

VMRO-DPMNE reacted immediately, accusing Islam Abazi, who heads the prosecution service, of shielding former health minister Venko Filipče. The reaction is expected and understandable - but it too is political, not legal.

The legal question is closed. The institutional one is not.

Why did a sensitive case, opened after the deaths of 14 people, need almost five years and three prosecutors to arrive at the conclusion that there is no evidence? If the documentation really does show that everything followed international rules, that gets established much faster. And if it was not clear, then five years is an answer in itself: something in the system does not work at the speed tragedy works at.

Fourteen families waited five years for an institutional answer. They got one. It is just that the answer to the question of who is held responsible remains what it was on day one - nobody.