Verdict expected in trial of public officials over hotel collapse which killed 35 Cypriots

A verdict is expected on Monday in the trial of six public officials from the southeastern Turkish city of Adiyaman over the collapse of the city’s Isias hotel, which killed 72 people, including 35 Cypriots.

The hotel collapsed during the first of two powerful earthquakes which hit the southeast of Turkey on February 6, 2023, with 24 of the 35 Cypriots who were killed having been children.

Monday’s hearing was expected to begin at Adiyaman’s first high criminal court at 10am local time, 9am Cyprus time, but was delayed as the Cypriot prosecution lawyers had been unable to reach Adiyaman on time due to adverse weather in southeastern Turkey.

As such, the start of the hearing was postponed until 12.30pm local time, 11.30am Cyprus time.

When the hearing begins, 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 will all appear in the dock.

Ahead of the day’s 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 conclusion has been “indicated by all the evidence”, and that she also expects “for all the necessary steps to be taken, and for consequences and the law to converge”, but that she fears the court may instead decide to convict the six defendants of the lesser charge of “causing death by conscious negligence”.

“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.

However, she stressed that she and other family members of the deceased will 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.

Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman offered his support for the families of the dead Cypriots, saying that his “heart and mind are in Adiyaman with the families”.

At the case’s previous hearing, Bulut had insisted that he had only signed off on reports which had already been prepared regarding the hotel during his term as deputy mayor.

“The projects had already been signed and prepared. I only signed the permit. It was not my responsibility to prepare any reports. The municipality’s operations and procedures are so complex that I cannot recall them,” he said.

He had earlier said that he had “no technical knowledge” and that he therefore could not be held liable for the hotel’s collapse.

“I was a history teacher. As far as I remember, I started working as Adiyaman’s deputy mayor in 1994. Before I started there, the rough construction of the Isias hotel had already been completed,” he said.

In December 2024, six other people, including the hotel’s owner and architect, were found guilty of causing death by conscious negligence leading to the building’s collapse.