The families of the 35 Turkish Cypriots who were killed when the İsias hotel in the south-eastern Turkish city of Adıyaman collapsed during earthquakes in February last year are in Adıyaman to attend the 5th hearing of the trial of the 11 people held responsible for the hotel’s collapse.
All 11 defendants currently stand accused of “causing death by conscious negligence” at Adıyaman’s third high criminal court.
If found guilty, they could face a maximum of 22 and a half years in prison each.
However, the families of those killed have demanded that the 11 be charged with intentionally killing all 72 victims.
The hearing will be the first since the submission of a report written about the building’s collapse by İzmir’s Dokuz Eylül University, which said the building’s collapse “was not caused by the earthquake, but by construction and design errors”.
“If the building had been built in accordance with earthquake-related building regulations passed into law in 1998, it would not have collapsed,” it said.
The report also found the building had collapsed in a different direction to that which had been claimed by the 11 defendants in the ongoing trial, and that this had happened “due to manufacturing errors and structural deficiencies”.
In addition, it found the “illegal floor” built on top of the hotel also had an impact on the building’s collapse.
Additionally, they said the mezzanine floor was “missing” from modelling done in safety reports regarding the hotel, and that as such, its impact was “ignored” when calculations were carried out.
This predicated the “soft storey irregularity” which had been referred to in the report prepared last year by Trabzon’s Karadeniz Technical University.
Soft storey irregularity means the higher floors were constructed more rigidly than the lower floors, meaning if an earthquake struck and the lower floors swayed, those higher collapsed more easily than they necessarily should have.
Meanwhile, President Ersin Tatar expressed his trust in the Turkish judiciary, highlighting that all facts surrounding the case have been meticulously documented in reports.
“Our only solace lies in the potential verdict for intent from Turkish justice,” Tatar stated.
The President commended the unified efforts of the Prime Minister, relevant ministers, opposition parties, and various stakeholders, all of whom have worked tirelessly to ensure a fair resolution to the case.
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