Turkey Opens First Major Trial Into Earthquake Deaths

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Facts

• Turkey opened its first major trial on Wednesday in the city of Adiyaman over alleged construction deficiencies in buildings that collapsed last year in two major earthquakes that killed tens of thousands of people.¹
• The hearing concerns 11 defendants, including the owner of the four-star Grand Isias Hotel, who are charged with 'conscious negligence' in the building's construction. According to the prosecution, the collapse of the hotel could have been prevented if safety standards had been adhered to during construction.²
• Seventy-two people were killed when the building collapsed during the quakes. Thirty-nine of the victims were from Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus, including 24 children who had traveled to Adiyaman for a school volleyball tournament and died along with a group of parents and chaperones.³
• According to the indictment, the building was illegally turned from a residential building into a hotel in 2001, whereby an additional floor was illegally added to the nine permitted by the original construction plan. Following the first quake, about 200 people were arrested for alleged construction violations.⁴
• In his statement, the hotel's owner, Ahmet Bozkurt, rejected the allegations that an additional floor had been added to the building and that structural columns of the hotel had been removed. He argued that the hotel had collapsed 'due to the high intensity of the earthquake.' If convicted, the defendants face prison sentences of up to 22.5 years.⁵
• The two earthquakes in February 2023, which were 7.8 and 7.5-magnitude in strength, killed more than 50K people and left millions homeless across 11 south and southeast provinces. Only four people survived the collapse of the Isias Hotel, making it the single largest tragedy in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized solely by Ankara.⁶

Sources: ¹France 24, ²Dw.Com, ³Guardian, ⁴Voice of America, ⁵Cyprus Mail and ⁶Turkish Minute.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by BBC News. While it's understandable for the victims' families to demand justice, the principle of innocence until proven guilty still applies. If safety regulations were indeed breached for profit during the hotel's construction, the government would also be to blame. It was Ankara that initiated a construction boom to boost the country's economy, and thus turned a blind eye to building regulation violations that had been tightened after previous disasters. Given the power of the Erdoğan apparatus, it is more than doubtful that justice will ever be served.
• Narrative B, as provided by alarabiya.net. Everything points to the defendants deliberately violating construction standards that turned a building into a death trap. Since Turkey has already been hit by severe earthquakes in the past, the hotel's construction means nothing other than that human lives were gambled with to cut costs. The blame lies not with Erdoğan but with corrupt contractors who bribed local authorities to use cheap building materials and illegally add extra floors. The trial shows that the Turkish legal system works and will work to prevent tragedies like this in the future.