Adiyaman, Turkey. A verdict is expected on Monday in the trial of six public officials over the collapse of Adiyaman’s Isias hotel, which killed 72 people, including 35 Cypriots. The hotel collapsed during the first of two powerful earthquakes that struck southeastern Turkey on February 6, 2023.
Hearing delayed due to weather
Monday’s hearing at Adiyaman’s first high criminal court was expected to begin at 10am local time, 9am Cyprus time, but was delayed after Cypriot prosecution lawyers were unable to reach Adiyaman on time due to adverse weather in southeastern Turkey. The hearing was postponed until 12.30pm local time, 11.30am Cyprus time.
Defendants to appear in court
Former deputy mayor Osman Bulut, former Adiyaman town planning directors Mehmet Salih Alkayis and Yusuf Gul, civil engineer Bilal Balci, building auditor Abdurrahman Karaarslan, and technician Fazli Karakus were set to appear in the dock when the hearing begins.
Families seek conviction on probable intent
Ahead of the hearing, Rusen Karakaya, whose daughter Selin was among the 24 Cypriot children who died in the hotel’s collapse, told the north’s Tak news agency that she expects the six defendants to be found guilty of “causing death by probable intent.” She said this was “indicated by all the evidence,” adding that she expects “for all the necessary steps to be taken, and for consequences and the law to converge.”
Karakaya said she fears the court may instead convict the defendants of the lesser charge of “causing death by conscious negligence.” She said, “This is our debt to our children. This is the most fundamental test of justice. As a mother, I say this: considering the established practice of lower courts basing their decisions on the prosecutor’s opinion, we are aware that it is legally foreseeable that the verdict could lean towards conscious negligence despite such clear and indisputable evidence.”
She said she and other family members of the deceased would not allow what she considers to be the truth to be covered up. “I am a mother; a mother who has buried her child and been forced to learn to live by caressing a gravestone. My child died under a chain of negligence, under facts which were deliberately ignored. All the evidence in the file, the expert reports, the technical facts, they all scream one thing at us: this was not an accident, this was not negligence, this was a foreseeable death,” she said.
What outcome do you expect from the court’s verdict in the Adiyaman Isias hotel trial?