Jail sought for 4 executives in Bartın mine blast

BARTIN

In the investigation into the mine blast which claimed the lives of 41 workers in the northern province of Bartın’s Amasra district, the prosecutor’s office demanded a prison sentence of 1,080 years for each of the four executives.

As part of the investigation brought by the Amasra Public Prosecutor’s Office, 23 employees of the Turkish Hard Coal Enterprises’ (TTK) were detained. While eight of them referred to the court were arrested, 15 were freed by a judicial control decision.

Volkan Soylu, the deputy director of the occupational safety branch; safety engineer Şahan Kahraman; Selçuk Ekmekçi, the operation manager; chief operating engineer Mehmet Tural; and engineers İbrahim Hakan Mengeş and Levent Aydın were detained.

The report prepared by Amasra Public Prosecutor Ozan Mert Alıcı said the detained TTK’s Amasra head Cihat Özdemir; Volkan Soylu, the deputy director of the occupational safety branch; safety engineer Şahan Kahraman; Selçuk Ekmekçi, the operation manager; and chief operating engineer Mehmet Tural should be sentenced to 1050 years in prison, 42 times for “possible intentional killing.”

It also demanded that they be sentenced for another 30 years, 10 times separately, on the grounds that they committed the crime of “possible intentional injury.”

Four executives were found to be defective in methane drainage, ventilation, coal dust handling, lack of technical personnel and occupational safety training and emergency drills.

A prison sentence of up to 15 years was demanded for 19 other suspects, four of whom were imprisoned, on charges of “causing death by negligence.” In addition, 19 suspects were asked to be sentenced for “injury by negligence” up to three years.

In the report against 23 suspects, 106 people from the relatives of the miners who lost their lives filed complainants.

The state audit court’s 2017 and 2019 reports had warned authorities of potential dangers in the mine at a depth of 300 meters, the same mine where the explosion occurred at a depth of 350 meters.

Around 600 workers are believed to work in the Amasra mine, which produces 300,000 to 400,000 tons of coal per year.