As a result of the collapse of the 6-year-old Selim Köse Apartment in the Odabaşı District of Hatay's Antakya district during the February 6 earthquakes, 43 people lost their lives, the youngest of whom was a 6-month-old baby, and 5 people were injured.
Hatay Chief Public Prosecutor's Office filed a lawsuit against contractor Hasan Köse, construction site manager Mehmet Ezer, building inspection company official and static application inspector Eysem Ezer, and control employee Gülseren Altundağ Tatlı for "causing the death of more than one person through conscious negligence".
Those who lost their relatives in the earthquake, some defendants and party lawyers attended the 6th hearing held today at Hatay 1st High Criminal Court. The defendants and the parties repeated their previous statements. Yağmur Suadiye Dalğıç, who lost her sister and two nephews in the earthquake, requested a "fair trial", reminding that the trial had been going on for more than 3.5 years.
ARREST THE CLIENT'S LAWYERS, THE DEFENDANT'S LAWYERS REQUESTED A NEW EXPERT REPORT
Berker Mutaf, one of the complainant's lawyers, stated that the expert reports in the file determined that the defendants were "primarily at fault" and demanded that the expert opinion presented by the defendant's defense counsel not be taken as basis for the decision, that the responsibilities of public officials be investigated, and that the defendants be arrested.
The defendant's lawyers also claimed that there were contradictions between the expert reports and requested a new and comprehensive report. The lawyers stated that their clients complied with the judicial control provisions and requested that the arrest requests be rejected.
The public prosecutor gave his opinion that the arrest requests should be rejected since the judicial control measures were complied with at this stage. The prosecutor noted that it was at the discretion of the court to order a new report within the scope of the file and requested that the missing issues be corrected.
THE COURT REJECTED THE REQUESTS FOR ARREST AND NEW EXPERT REPORT
The court panel decided to continue the judicial control measures against the four defendants and to reject the requests for a new report on the grounds that there was no contradiction between the arrest of the defendants and the expert reports in the file.
Following the arrival of the final report from the Forensic Medicine Institute regarding an earthquake victim and the statement of the defendant Tatlı, the committee ruled that the file be sent to the prosecutor's office to prepare for opinion, and postponed the hearing to December 2.
“WE ARE WONDERING HOW THE DEFENDANTS MADE THE REPORTS THAT THEY WERE PERFECT”
Seda Mutaf, one of the complainant's lawyers, evaluated the process to ANKA News Agency.
Mutaf argued that the expert opinion report of a METU professor submitted to the file by the defendant's lawyers before the hearing was unscientific and biased, and stated that they learned that the same academician had prepared reports in favor of the defendants in other earthquake cases.
Mutaf said:
"When we did a short research on Google about this academic, we saw a news that he gave a conference in Kayseri about two days ago. We were very surprised when we read an excerpt from his speech in the news, in which he said that he investigated the first cause of the earthquake and as a result of this research, the first reason was immorality, and that these things happened to us because of the lack of ethical values, the use of bad materials or theft of materials. Because this academic, contrary to the reports previously received by the court and the prosecutor's office, stating that the defendants were 'flawless' in the files, we were very surprised." "We wonder how he could prepare these reports to defend this if, in his own words, the demolition of these buildings was caused by immorality."
