A trial in Turkey has ended with eleven people sentenced to life imprisonment following a January fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel that caused the death of 78 people and injured 137.
A court in the Turkish town of Bolu, close to the scene of the Grand Kartal Hotel fire in mountain resort Kartalkaya, sentenced the hotel’s owner, general manager and several board members on the charge of “killing with possible intent,” according to newspaper Turkish Minute. A deputy mayor and a local fire chief were also sentenced in connection with the fire.
The newspaper said the court judged the hoteliers had failed to maintain fire alarms and safety equipment in workable condition.
The trial, Turkish Minute added, unveiled the “widespread criticism of state oversight of tourism facilities in Turkey.”
It also said legal association, the Türkiye Barolar Birliği, or Union of Turkish Bar Associations, has urged an investigation of what it claimed is a lack of accountability in the government’s Culture & Tourism Ministry, which it added cleared the property one month before the fire.
According to CoStar, the hotel had 163 rooms and is now closed. It opened as a hotel in January 1998 and was part of the Bolu Kartalkaya Ski Center.
Kartalkaya is approximately 100 miles northwest of Ankara, the Turkish capital, and approximately 200 miles east of Istanbul, the country’s largest city.
There were 238 guests at the hotel on Jan. 21, the night of the fire. Al-Jazeera reported the fire occurred near the end of the winter school holiday and that 34 children were among the victims.
Those sentenced received “34 aggravated life sentences for the 34 children killed in the disaster,” according to Al-Jazeera.