The trial of 23 defendants, eight of whom are currently in custody, has started regarding the mine explosion in which 43 workers lost their lives and nine were injured on Oct. 14 last year in the Turkish Hard Coal Enterprises (TTK) mine institution, located in the Amasra district of northern Bartin province.
The defendants, complainants, relatives of those who lost their lives in the explosion and lawyers attended the Bartın High Criminal Court hearing.
Law enforcement agencies took extensive security measures in and around the courthouse. The indictment summary was read at the hearing.
Some of those who filed complaints and relatives of those who lost their lives reacted as the defendants were brought into the courtroom.
Within the scope of the investigation carried out by the Amasra Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, 24 suspects, including TTK Amasra Institution Director Cihat Özdemir, the company's Deputy Director Salih Atmaca, Operations Manager Selçuk Ekmekci, Chief Engineer of Occupational Safety and Training Volkan Soylu, Chief Engineer Mehmet Tural, mining engineers Levent Aydın and Ibrahim Hakan Mengeş, mining engineers responsible for the carts (the quarry consisting of several production units) and police engineer Şahan Kahraman were arrested for "causing the death and injury of more than one person by conscious negligence"; Judicial control provisions were applied to four suspects, while three of the suspects were released by a judge, and nine of them were released after investigations conducted by the prosecutor's office.
A decision of "non-prosecution" was given for one of these suspects during the investigation process. In the indictment, a sentence of 840 years to 1,050 years is being demanded 42 times for "possible intentional killing" and 5.5 years to 12 years for "possible intentional injury" for the detained defendants Özdemir, Ekmekci, Soylu and Tural.
In the indictment demanding 845 to 1,062 years for two crimes, 19 defendants, four imprisoned, were charged with 2.5 years and 22.5 years for "causing the death and injury of more than one person by conscious negligence."
