As a result of the collapse of the Cemil Çapar Apartment Building in the Gazi District of Hatay's Antakya district during the February 6 earthquakes, 52 residents of the building lost their lives, and the bodies of some people could not be found due to the fire that broke out after the collapse of the building.
At the verdict hearing held at the Hatay 3rd High Criminal Court on December 12, 2025, building owners and contractors Mehmet Özkan and Yusuf Özkan, site manager and static project designer Mehmet Güçlü, officials of the building inspection company Habip Turhaner and Bülent Kimyon and control staff Levent Numanoğlu were sentenced to 17 years and 6 months in prison for "causing the death and injury of more than one person through conscious negligence". static project and application inspector Mehmet Tokdemir was acquitted.
After the Hatay Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, the lawyers of those who lost their relatives in the earthquake, and the lawyers of the defendants appealed the decision, the file was moved to the Adana Regional Court of Justice.
Adana Regional Court of Justice 14th Criminal Chamber evaluated the objections.
While the prison sentences given to the defendants were increased due to "conscious negligence", the chamber drew attention to the increase in the sentences imposed on each defendant from the upper limit, based on phrases devoid of justification such as "...it was understood that they acted with conscious negligence in their actions, and their sentences were increased by 1/2 by discretion and incentive by applying the provisions of conscious negligence", without explaining which behaviors of the defendants predicted the outcome.
The decision also emphasized the contradiction between two different expert reports taken during the investigation and prosecution stages, and criticized the decision to make a decision without obtaining a new expert report from Istanbul Technical University or another technical university.
The chamber stated that the decisions made about the defendants Levent Numanoğlu and Mehmet Tokdemir were based on incomplete research. The department noted that the defendants' HTS records and base station data between May 4, 2010 and October 21, 2011 should be examined, their frequency of meetings with other defendants should be determined, and SSI records should be evaluated.
The Chamber also found it unlawful to convict Numanoğlu based on a report that did not contain a definitive opinion that the signature might belong to him, and to acquit Tokdemir based on a report that did not provide a definitive opinion as to whether the signatures belonged to him.
The Department stated that signature samples of the defendants and documents belonging to the building inspection company should be collected and a new signature examination should be carried out at the Forensic Medicine Institute, and stated that a verdict cannot be made with incomplete research.
The Chamber deemed the appeal applications of the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and the parties appropriate and decided to overturn the verdict. It ruled that the defendants Mehmet Özkan and Mehmet Güçlü continue to be detained and that the file be sent to the court of first instance, whose decision was overturned, for re-examination and judgment.
Hatay 3rd High Criminal Court decided to continue the detention of the defendants Mehmet Özkan and Mehmet Güçlü after the decision to overturn the appeal. The court ordered a new expert report to be obtained, the HTS and base station records of the defendants to be examined, and the signatures of Levent Numanoğlu and Mehmet Tokdemir to be re-examined at the Forensic Medicine Institute. The post-reversal hearing will be held on November 6.
Seher Eriş Turgut, one of the complainant's lawyers, evaluated the process as follows:
"The decision to overturn the Cemil Çapar Apartment building file is important in terms of revealing the material truth and criminal liability in all its aspects in the incident in which 52 people lost their lives. The fact that the building collapsed in approximately 8 seconds and the complete demolition of the Cemil Çapar Apartment Building, in a situation where other buildings on the same street were not demolished, necessitates the project design, construction, materials used and inspection process of the building to be discussed in detail.
Resolving the contradictions between expert reports, examining HTS and base station records, and renewing signature examinations are important in determining the actual roles and responsibilities of the defendants in the occurrence of the incident. Here, it is necessary to reveal not only whether there are technical deficiencies in the building, but also who created these deficiencies, who knew or should have known, and why the necessary precautions were not taken.
In terms of criminal law, evaluation cannot be based solely on the occurrence of the result. The causal link and fault between the concrete action and the result of death must be demonstrated separately for each defendant. In particular, the use of bad and non-standard materials, practices contrary to the construction technique, and failure to eliminate these despite being detected during the inspection phase should be evaluated together. The foreseeability of these acts and omissions in terms of the outcome of death and the voluntary attitudes of the defendants towards this outcome should also be determined.
For this reason, we think that the file should be evaluated not only within the scope of 'conscious negligence' but also in terms of 'possible intent' regulated in Article 21 of the Turkish Penal Code, in the light of the existing evidence and new expert reports to be received. Because the main distinction between 'possible intent' and 'conscious negligence' is that, beyond foreseeing the outcome, it is determined based on all the features of the concrete event whether the perpetrator accepts the outcome he predicted will come true or not. In order to make this distinction, the nature of the serious technical irregularities in the structure, who knew them, the inspection processes and the knowledge and behavior of the defendants before the incident should be evaluated together.
The families' demand is not just for a conviction. Our request is to reveal the causal link between the concrete action of each defendant and the result of death; The legal nature of the crime is also handled with 'possible intent' based on these material facts. "We will continue the families' search for justice until the material truth is revealed in all its aspects and a verdict is made in accordance with the law."
