Turkiye court postpones hearing over hotel fire

AFP :

A Turkish court on Thursday adjourned the trial of 32 people over a fire January at a luxury ski resort hotel that killed 78 people, after 10 days of harrowing testimony.

Since the trial opened on July 7, survivors, many of them in tears, have told the court how they escaped the deadly blaze, whose victims included 36 children.

The fire swept through the Grand Kartal Hotel in the northern mountain resort of Kartalkaya on January 21.

As well as the 78 people killed in the fire, another 130 people were injured.

The court is considering allegations that poor safety measures at the hotel contributed to the disaster.

Among the defendants facing manslaughter charges are the hotel’s owner, managers, the deputy mayor of Bolu city and two fire department officials.

“Everyone including the employees and bosses lied in their initial statements,” said Yusuf Yaman, the private DHA news agency reported. Yaman lost his daughter and grand-daughter in the fire.

“We lost 78 lives. They’re all my children. If they (the suspects) had shown courage, if they had confessed everything, they would have had a clearer conscience,” he added.

After the fire, the different organizations under scrutiny denied responsibility, the tourism ministry and the local municipality run by the main opposition CHP party blaming each other.

At the end of the 10-day hearing, the hotel’s director and owner Emir Aras expressed regret. He told the judge he did not want to be released from detention, DHA reported. The court postponed the hearing to September 22.