During the opening hearing of the trial over a deadly hotel fire that killed 78 people in January, victims’ families called for public officials to be investigated and held accountable for alleged negligence, the Evrensel daily reported.
A massive fire swept through the Grand Kartal Hotel, a ski resort in Bolu province, during peak season, with nearly 250 guests staying at the hotel. Experts said negligence played a role in the high death toll as there were no working alarms, no sprinklers and there was only one protected fire staircase. Soon after the disaster the public raised questions about who was responsible for conducting fire inspections —the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the municipality or the fire department.
An expert report said all parties were liable in the disaster and found the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Bolu Municipality Fire Department, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the Bolu Provincial Special Administration primarily responsible.
A total of 32 people, including the hotel owners, Bolu Deputy Mayor Sedat Gülener, Acting Fire Chief Kenan Coşkun and firefighter İrfan Acar, appeared in court Monday morning.
Members of the fire department were among the defendants due to an earlier inspection report they issued, which was found to be incomplete and inadequate according to the expert report.
Thirteen of the defendants — including senior officials at the hotel, the fire department and the city council — face up to 1,998 years in prison each on 78 charges, including “manslaughter with possible intent” to kill. However, as of now, no officials from the relevant ministries have been formally charged or prosecuted.
Attorney Yüksel Gültekin, who lost eight relatives in the massacre, asked to speak before the trial started and said the defendants brought before the court were only some of the guilty. He argued that the minister of tourism and officials from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security were equally culpable for granting the hotel a license to operate despite its failure to meet fire safety regulations.
Family member Zeynep Kotan said they hoped the judicial process would proceed transparently and that the truth about who was culpable would come to light.
“We demand that everyone and every institution responsible for this massacre be held accountable. In addition to the defendants currently on trial, we expect immediate authorization for investigations into public officials who failed to do their job. Despite the expert report identifying the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the Ministry of Interior as primarily responsible for this fire, no officials from these ministries have ever been the subject of an investigation,” she said.
