Company never predicted such an accident, says owner of Karaman mine

KARAMAN – Doğan News Agency

AA Photo

The owner of the coal mine in the southern province of Karaman, where 18 workers were trapped after an underground flood on Oct. 28, has said in his testimony that the company never predicted such an accident.

Saffet Uyar, the owner of Has Şekerler Mining, which runs the disaster-hit mine, surrendered to the public prosecutor’s office early on Nov. 9, after he was summoned following the detention of seven other officials in the investigation.

Uyar reportedly said he tried to bring a good technical team together at the mine after taking over it in 2009, but they never foresaw or predicted that such an accident could happen.

The company did not have the production maps of the previous mine in the area and they only took information about it from one miner who worked at that mine, he also said. He added that he did not know that the cause of a 2011 flood was due to the former mine, as he was told it was due to underground waters.

Uyar’s lawyer, Şeref Han, has even suggested that Has Şekerler Mining was the victim of the accident as well as the workers, claiming that the government was at serious fault in the incident.

A total of eight officials have been detained on charges of “causing death” and were questioned upon an order by the Ermenek Public Prosecutor’s Office, after two bodies were recovered from the mine on Nov. 6.

The legal detention period ends today (Nov. 10) and the prosecutor’s office must decide whether to release the officials or send them to court.