Eleven jailed for life after Turkey ski hotel fire

A Turkish court sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment for a January fire at a ski resort in northwestern Türkiye’s Bolu mountains that killed 78 people, state media reported.

According to the news of state television TRT Haber, Halit Ergül, the owner of the Grand Kartal Hotel where the fire broke out, was among the 11 defendants who were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment by the court in Bolu on Friday.

34 children were among those who lost their lives in the fire that broke out during the school holidays, when many families from Istanbul and Ankara went to the Bolu mountains to ski. 137 more people were injured.

TRT reported that there were a total of 32 defendants in the case, 20 of whom were detained. In addition to Ergül, the defendants included the hotel’s board members, managers and employees, as well as a deputy mayor and fire department personnel.

The disaster triggered calls for accountability and reform. Independent experts said that the hotel in Kartalkaya ski resort lacks basic fire safety measures.

The fire started on the restaurant floor of the 12-storey building, where 238 guests stayed. He forced panicked hotel guests to jump out of windows in the middle of the night.