Turkey’s Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) has criticized the lack of accountability for Culture and Tourism Ministry officials over a fire at a luxury ski resort that killed 78 people earlier this year, saying ministry officials who cleared the property one month before the blaze were not investigated, Turkish Minute reported, citing Deutsche Welle’s Turkish service.
The fire swept through the Grand Kartal Hotel in the northern mountain resort of Kartalkaya, in Bolu province, on January 21. As well as the 78 dead, including 36 children, 137 people were injured. The inquiry found that the fire alarm had not worked on the night of the fire and that some of the gas equipment did not meet safety norms.
A Turkish court last week sentenced 11 people, including the owner, manager and several board members of the hotel, to life in prison on charges of “killing with possible intent.”
A deputy mayor in Bolu and the local fire chief were also sentenced to prison. Thirty-two people, 20 of whom had been kept in custody, had faced charges at the hearing.
The TBB’s Environmental and Urban Law Commission in a written statement welcomed the harsh sentences handed down to the defendants last week but noted that not all those responsible for the tragedy were brought before the court.
The commission reminded that Culture and Tourism Ministry officials conducted an inspection at the hotel and prepared a report stating that there were no safety shortcomings just one month before the fire.
It said that despite this, permission was not granted for the relevant public officials at the ministry to be investigated and that the Council of State had ruled in favor of allowing such an investigation following objections by the public prosecutor and the victims’ lawyers.
“At this stage, the fact that the public officials who were investigated after permission was granted for the probe continue in their jobs without being subject to any investigative action undermines the sense of justice and injures the public conscience,” the commission added.
It called for their immediate suspension “not as a presumption of guilt, but as a necessary, temporary and lawful administrative measure to ensure an effective, impartial and reliable investigation,” adding that the simplest and most effective way to prevent the concealment of evidence or influence over witnesses is to remove officials from duty during the probe.
“The Kartalkaya disaster, as in past examples, has revealed the serious consequences of an organized chain of negligence, ineffective oversight and lack of merit,” the TBB commission said, urging authorities to identify all actors with responsibility before, during and after the fire and to hold them to account without exception.
The fire occurred during the winter school break, with 238 guests at the hotel. Many survivors said there were no functioning alarms, fire doors or safety exits. Several guests were forced to escape from windows using bedsheets as ropes.
The Grand Kartal Hotel blaze has attracted widespread criticism of state oversight of tourism facilities in Turkey. Families of the victims say negligence and regulatory failures contributed to the scale of the disaster.
Despite calls for his resignation, Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy remains in office.
