Hotel owner, 10 others get aggravated life sentences over deadly Bolu fire
BOLU
A court in the northern province of Bolu has handed multiple aggravated life sentences to 11 defendants, including hotel owner Halit Ergül, for their roles in a deadly hotel fire at the Kartalkaya ski resort earlier this year.
The court delivered its verdict on Oct. 31, during the third hearing of the trial, after listening to the defendants of the Jan. 21 blaze that tore through the 12-story Grand Kartal Hotel at the Kartalkaya ski resort during the winter school holiday.
A total of 78 people were killed, while nearly half of the victims were children vacationing with their families.
Along with Ergül, those sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment include members of the hotel’s parent company’s board — among them Ergül’s wife and daughters — as well as Bolu Deputy Mayor Sedat Gülener, acting Fire Department Chief Kenan Coşkun and firefighter İrfan Acar.
The court cited the deaths of the children staying at the hotel as grounds for issuing aggravated life sentences. The defendants also received life sentences for the deaths of the remaining victims.
In total, the defendants were sentenced to 34 counts of aggravated life imprisonment for the child victims and an additional 25 years in prison for the 44 adult victims.
No sentence reductions were applied. Two defendants who had been tried without arrest were taken into custody following the verdict.
The announcement of the sentences was met with applause in the courtroom.
Under the Turkish penal code, the minimum term for conditional release is 30 years for aggravated life imprisonment, while it is 24 years for life imprisonment.
The tragedy — in which guests and staff leapt from windows to escape smoke- and flame-filled rooms, or used bedsheets to lower themselves from upper floors — sent shockwaves across Türkiye and fueled widespread calls for accountability over negligence and safety violations.
Insufficient fire-safety measures exacerbated the disaster and families of the victims issued several calls that negligence contributed to the high death toll.
