Tension and heartache filled the courtroom at the Adıyaman 3rd High Criminal Court on Tuesday during the fourth hearing of the İsias Hotel trial, where victims’ families anxiously followed the proceedings.
The trial, which has captivated public attention, was marked by tears and frustration as the court announced a provisional ruling, adjourning the proceedings until December 3, 2024.
The trial of the 11 people held responsible for the collapse of the Isias hotel in the south-eastern Turkish city of Adıyaman, which killed all 24 children and 11 adults representing the Gazimağusa Turk Maarif Koleji (secondary school) volleyball team during the earthquakes which hit the region in February last year, was on Tuesday adjourned until December 3.
All 11 defendants are currently standing accused of “causing death by conscious negligence” at Adiyaman’s third high criminal court. If found guilty, they could face a maximum of 22 and a half years in prison each.
However, the families of those killed have demanded that the 11 be charged with intentionally killing all 72 victims.
The lead defendants, the hotel’s owner Ahmet Bozkurt maintained his innocence throughout the hearing, saying that he had seen the ruins of the hotel before he was arrested and that “90 per cent of Adiyaman had been destroyed” by the earthquake.
He will remain in custody until December 3, having been in custody since his arrest in February 2023.
The other two defendants, Bozkurt’s son Mehmet Fatih Bozkurt and the building’s architect will also remain in custody.
Meanwhile, judicial control measures for the other defendants—Efe Bozkurt, Halil Bağcı, Hasan Aslan, Mehmet Göncüoğlu, Şule Özbek, and Ülviye Bozkurt—remain unchanged, allowing them restricted freedom pending further legal proceedings.
More than a 100 people, including family members of those who were killed, Prime Minister Ünal Üstel, ministers, the leader of the main opposition Republican Turkish Party (CTP), MPs and politicians, a delegation of the Cyprus Turkish bar association, and an army of journalists have been following the trial in Adıyaman.
The hearing had been set for Tuesday as it had been hoped that a fourth report into the hotel’s collapse, which was ordered by the court in April to be carried out by Izmir’s Dokuz Eylul University, would be ready.
The fourth report was commissioned after a controversial report into the hotel’s construction was prepared by Ankara’s Gazi University. The report was much less scathing than the first two, written by Trabzon’s Karadeniz Technical University and the Istanbul Technical University.