A contingent of Cypriots numbering some 100 people on Monday travelled to the southeastern Turkish city of Adiyaman ahead of the next hearing of the trial of the 11 people held responsible for the collapse of the city’s Isias hotel, which killed 24 Cypriot children, 11 Cypriot adults, and 37 others last year.
The group, which consisted of family members of those who were killed, politicians, a delegation of the Cyprus Turkish bar association, and a number of journalists departed from the north’s Ercan (Tymbou) airport first for Gaziantep on Monday morning, before continuing on to Adiyaman over land.
The trial is set to resume on Tuesday, with all 11 defendants 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 rhetoric surrounding this demand has been ramped up by the families of the victims ahead of the trial’s resumption, with Rusen Karakaya, whose daughter Selin was among those killed, insisting that such charges be brought in an interview with news agency Tak.
Karakaya is now the chairwoman of the Keeping the Champion Angels Alive Association – the “champion angels” moniker being given to the Cypriot children who had travelled to Adiyaman representing the Famagusta Turk Maarif Koleji volleyball team and who were killed when the hotel collapsed.
She told Tak that “if no decision is made to upgrade the charges to include the possibility of intent, we will say ‘justice collapsed, justice lost, justice was defeated’.”
Of the 11 defendants, she said, “they have plunged our lives into darkness, but if justice comes with convictions for intent, we believe we will see some light.
“Everything is clear in the Isias case. The hotel collapsed in seconds and became our children’s grave. It is clear the building’s lift was tampered with, and no such project was approved by the authorities. They forged the licences.”
Her words were echoed by lawyer Pervin Aksoy Ipekcioglu, whose daughter Serin was also among those killed. She told newspaper Yeni Duzen that in her opinion, charges of intentionally killing all 72 victims would be appropriate for the case’s defendants.
“The type of fault we call ‘intent’ is when a person foresees the outcome but does not care and does not take precautions. If the Republic of Turkey wants to make a fair decision in this case, it must definitely convict the defendants of intentional killing,” he said.
She also expressed doubts that the fourth report into the hotel’s collapse, which was ordered by the court in Adiyaman in April to be carried out by Izmir’s Dokuz Eylul University, will be ready in time for Tuesday.
“The reason the court adjourned the hearing to October 22 was to have the report ready by that date, but we do not have it yet. It seems likely that it will not be ready in time,” she said.
It had been found that permits had been given to the Isias hotel which did not comply with the relevant laws, and that information written on permits did not match the work which had been carried out at the hotel.
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, which written by Trabzon’s Karadeniz Technical University and the Istanbul Technical University.
The first two had outlined how sand and gravel from a local river had been used in the hotel’s construction, and how supporting columns had been cut at the hotel, among numerous other deficiencies, but the Gazi University report had said a reported illegal floor and illegal lift shaft had not impacted the hotel’s collapse.
