The Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office of the Tuzla Canton issued an order to conduct an investigation against two responsible persons in the Tuzla Retirement Home. The investigation was opened against Mirsad Bakalović, former director of the Tuzla Retirement Home and Zinaida Razić Halilović, head of the Department for Economic, Financial, Accounting and General Affairs at the Home and a member of the Board of Directors (according to the authority of the director, she is also responsible for managing the Department of Health Care and Care).
They are suspected of having committed, as accomplices, the criminal offense of serious criminal offenses against the general safety of people and property in connection with the criminal offense of causing general danger, and Bakalović for the prolonged criminal offense of abuse of position or authority. Today, they were deprived of their liberty and are being questioned in the premises of the Police Department of the Interior Ministry of TK.
˝The suspects are charged with the fact that, as responsible persons in the Public Institution “Dom penzionera” Tuzla, in the period from February 2024 to November 4, 2025, they deliberately failed to organize and implement the prescribed fire protection measures and the general safety of the users, even though they knew that it was a high-risk facility included in the first category of fire risk and in which particularly vulnerable categories of users reside (where 180 elderly users are housed, of which 110 are seriously ill, immobile or disabled), said the spokesman of the TK Prosecutor’s Office, Admir Arnautović.
According to the results of the investigation so far, Bakalović and Razić-Halilović are suspected of not having provided the prescribed number of medical staff, caregivers and other staff in night shifts in relation to the number of users, even though they knew that such a number of staff could not ensure even the minimum conditions for the general safety of the users, as well as supervision and evacuation, especially in extraordinary circumstances such as a fire.
˝Bakalović is also suspected of not implementing mandatory safety measures in the facility, which is why an adequate early warning and fire prevention system was not established, technical conditions for safe smoke extraction and evacuation of users were not ensured, supervision of compliance with the ban on the use of electrical devices was not carried out, and the accommodation schedule of users was not organized in accordance with their mobility and state of health, says Arnautović.
In the order to conduct the investigation, it was stated that these omissions had the effect of endangering the safety of a large number of people, and when a fire broke out in the room of one of the users on November 4, 2025, which quickly began to spread, it caused the death of a large number of users of the Tuzla Retirement Home, who due to their health condition were unable to protect themselves or evacuate, and more than 30 people were injured.
Mirsad Bakalović is also charged with taking advantage of his position to conclude employment contracts and assigning two employees to fire protection and night receptionist jobs contrary to legal requirements, without the prescribed professional qualifications, thereby additionally violating the rights of users and employees to safety and to the protection of life and health, said the spokesperson of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Turkey.
After the criminal investigation, the suspects will be handed over to the Prosecutor’s Office, and further measures and actions will be taken in relation to them.
Let us remind you that the fire in the Tuzla Retirement Home broke out on November 4 this year. 16 people died as a result of carbon monoxide suffocation, while one person died from burns. Bakalović resigned after the fire in the institution.
As previously announced by the TK Prosecutor’s Office, according to the initial findings of the expert, the fire was caused by a short circuit in the conductors of the connecting cable of the radio receiver, which at the time of the fire was plugged into a plug, squeezed between the mattress on the bed, the wall and the metal part of the bed in the room of one of the residents of the Tuzla Retirement Home. The main cause is first the mechanical and then the thermal load of the cable.
(TIP/Photo: Illustration)
