Turkish Court Imprisons Hotel Owner and Architect for 2023 Earthquake Collapse

A Turkish court has handed down prison sentences to the owner and architect of a hotel that crumbled during a 2023 earthquake, resulting in 72 fatalities. According to the official Anadolu news agency, Ahmet Bozkurt, the proprietor of the Isias Grand, and architect Erdem Yilmaz each received sentences of 18 years and five months. The agency also stated that Bozkurt’s son, Mehmet Fatih, was given a sentence of 17 years and four months. Located in the south-eastern city of Adiyaman, the hotel was accommodating a school volleyball team from Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus and a contingent of tourist guides when the seismic event occurred last February. Anadolou reported that the trio was found guilty of “causing the death or injury of more than one person through conscious negligence”. The AFP news agency conveyed that Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Unal Ustel expressed the view that the sentences were excessively lenient and that an appeal would be lodged by the authorities. “Hotel owners did not get the punishment we had expected,” Ustel stated. “But despite that, everyone from those responsible in the hotel’s construction to the architect was sentenced. That made us partially happy.” The earthquake on 6 February 2023 claimed the lives of over 50,000 individuals across Turkey and Syria. Approximately 160,000 structures either collapsed or sustained severe damage, rendering 1.5 million people without homes. Weeks afterward, the Turkish government announced that hundreds of individuals were under investigation and close to 200 had been apprehended, among them construction contractors and property owners. A contingent of 39 individuals, comprising boys, girls, teachers, and parents from Famagusta Turkish Education College, had journeyed to Adiyaman to participate in a volleyball tournament when the earthquake occurred. Only four parents survived from this group, having managed to extricate themselves from the debris, while the remaining 35, including all the children, perished. The volleyball team had chosen the seven-storey Isias Grand, which was also accommodating up to 40 tourist guides attending a training session. Despite being one of Adiyaman’s prominent hotels, it disintegrated rapidly. The Isias had been in operation since 2001; however, scientific examination revealed that gravel and sand sourced from the local river had been combined with other building materials to create the structural columns. The extensive number of building failures during the earthquake led to considerable criticism directed at the Turkish government for promoting a construction surge without adequately enforcing building codes, which had been strengthened following previous catastrophes.