Sawt Falasteen - Turkish court jails 11 for life over deadly hotel fire

Fire swept through the Grand Kartal Hotel in the northern mountain resort of Kartalkaya on January 21. Investigators said safety norms had been flouted.

As well as the 78 dead, 137 people were injured. Whole families were killed in the blaze and relatives put up pictures of the victims outside a gymnasium in the northern town of Bolu used for the hearings.

The owner, hotel manager and several members of the hotel board were among those given life terms by the court, according to media accounts of the trial.

A deputy mayor in Bolu and the local fire chief were also given jail terms. Thirty-two people, 20 of whom had been kept in custody, had faced charges at the hearing.

The inquiry found that the fire alarm had not worked on the night of the fire and that some of the gas equipment did not meet safety norms.

"We had regular inspections," Halit Ergul, owner of the Grand Kartal who was given a life term, told the court. He denied responsibility and blamed the gas equipment supplier.

"I did not even allow fireworks in front of the hotel for weddings because I did not want the birds to die," he said, according to the DHA news agency.

People who escaped the blaze and relatives of the dead gave tearful testimony to the court over fire that started in a hotel restaurant just before 3:30 am.

"I go to the cemetery each day. No psychologist can ease such a pain," said Hilmi Altin, who lost his wife and nine-year-old daughter in the disaster.

J.AbuHassan--SF-PST