A Turkish court has sentenced the owner and architect of a hotel that collapsed in an earthquake in 2023, killing 72 people, to prison.
The owner of the Isias Grand, Ahmet Bozkurt, and architect Erdem Yilmaz, were given 18 years and five months each, official Anadolu media reported. Bozkurt's son, Mehmet Fatih, was sentenced to 17 years and four months, he said.
The hotel, located in the southeastern city of Adiyaman, was housing a school volleyball team from Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus and a group of tour guides when the quake struck last February.
The three men were convicted of “causing the death or injury of more than one person due to recklessness,” Anadolou said.
Turkish Prime Minister Unal Ustel said the sentences were too light and said the authorities would appeal the case, new AFP reports.
“The hotel owners did not receive the punishment they expected,” said ustel. “But despite that, everyone from those involved in the construction of the hotel to the architect was convicted. That made us a little happy.”
More than 50,000 people died in Turkey and Syria in the February 6, 2023 earthquake.
About 160,000 buildings were destroyed or severely damaged, leaving 1.5 million people homeless.
The Turkish government said several weeks later that hundreds of people were being investigated and nearly 200 people had been arrested, including construction contractors and property owners.
A group of 39 people, including boys and girls, teachers and parents from Famagusta Turkish Education College, had gone to Adiyaman for a volleyball tournament when the earthquake struck.
The four parents are the only survivors among them. They managed to pull themselves out of the rubble, and 35 others, including all the children, died.
The volleyball team had chosen the seven-story Isias Grand, and about 40 tour guides were there to train.
It was one of the most famous hotels in Adiyaman but it collapsed in a short time.
Isias has been operating since 2001 but, according to scientific research, stones and sand from the local river were mixed with other building materials to form the pillars that support the structure.
The massive scale of building collapse in the earthquake has sparked widespread criticism of the Turkish government for promoting a construction boom while failing to enforce building regulations, which had been tightened after previous disasters.
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