Court jails hotel owner and architect in landmark earthquake trial

ADIYAMAN

An Adıyaman court has handed down its verdict in the Grand İsias Hotel case, one of the landmark trials related to the devastating 2023 earthquakes, and sentenced six defendants, including the hotel owner and the architect, to prison terms.

During the earthquakes on February 6, 2023, the hotel collapsed, killing 72 people. The earthquakes that devastated eleven southern provinces resulted in the deaths of over 53,000 people.

Guests who stayed at the Grand İsias Hotel during the disaster included a school volleyball team from the Turkish part of Cyprus and several Turkish tour guides.

After hours of testimony, the court panel met for another four hours of deliberation before announcing the early verdict on December 25.

As with previous hearings, Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Ünal Üstel and numerous senior officials attended the meeting in Adıyaman to observe the proceedings.

Hotel owner Ahmet Bozkurt was sentenced to 18 years and five months in prison for “causing the death or injury of more than one person through deliberate negligence” by failing to ensure the building met earthquake regulations.

“I am not the architect who designed the building; I just own the land and run the business. “I do not deny my role, but the allegations that I acted as a contractor or falsified documents have no basis,” Bozkurt rejected the allegations.

“If the earthquake hadn’t been so strong, my hotel wouldn’t have collapsed,” he said.

His son Mehmet Fatih Bozkurt was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison and architect Erdem Yılmaz received 18 years and five months in prison on the same charge.

The owner’s son emphasized his innocence and asserted: “I have a visa-free passport. If I had planned to escape, it would have been effortless. But I chose to stand trial because I’m not guilty.”

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, the Turkish Cypriot prime minister stressed his dissatisfaction with the sentence imposed on the hotel owner, but admitted that “justice had been served” with the sentences imposed on the rest.

“Hotel owners did not receive the punishment we expected. However, the judiciary has ensured that everyone involved in the construction of the hotel, from the architect to other members of the hotel chain, must be held duly accountable. That gives us some comfort,” he noted.

Üstel reiterated that Turkish Cyprus had closely monitored the trial from day one and expressed his trust in the Turkish judiciary.

“This case may be closed here, but it is far from closed for us. Once the detailed reasons for the judgment are published, we will refer the matter to the Court of Appeal and continue to fight for justice as a nation,” he said.

After the earthquake disaster that reduced thousands of buildings to rubble, Turkey’s Justice Ministry set up an office dedicated to investigating crimes related to earthquake collapses.

In addition to the Grand İsias Hotel trial, another high-profile case involving a luxury residential complex in Hatay marketed as a “corner of paradise” that collapsed, killing 269 residents, has attracted widespread attention at home and abroad.

In the Hatay case, 59 people who are believed to have been in their homes at the time of the early morning earthquake are still missing and their bodies have yet to be recovered.