Turkey prosecutors urge long jail terms for deadly ski resort fire suspects

ISTANBUL: Prosecutors are demanding long jail terms for 32 suspects over a huge fire that gutted a luxury ski resort hotel in northern Turkey, killing 78 people, media reports said on Saturday, citing the indictment. The blaze ripped though the Grand Kartal Hotel at the Kartalkaya ski resort in the early hours of January 21, with the testimony of survivors and experts pointing to safety failures on multiple levels. According to the indictment, prosecutors in the nearby town of Bolu want 13 suspects -- among them the hotel's owner, managers and board members, as well as Bolu's deputy mayor, deputy fire chief and another firefighter -- to serve up to 1,998 years behind bars on 78 counts of "killing with possible intent". They also want another 19 people to each face jail terms of up to 22 years and six months for "causing death and injuries through conscious negligence", among them members of the hotel's technical and kitchen staff, as well as several external maintenance experts.It said the incident began at 3:17 am when a faulty electric grill plate in the fourth floor kitchen that overheated and started a fire which ignited the kitchen's gas supply hose, creating a blaze which by 3:26 am had "exceeded controllable limits".

The intense heat caused the varnished chipboard and wood to turn to gas, causing excessive smoke that "rose rapidly to the upper floors, causing the corridors to be filled with toxic smoke and flammable gases". The fire also spread to the wooden cladding on the exterior of the building", causing the flames to rise up the exterior facade. The indictment found there was "no audible warning" system and that the hotel's "emergency action plan was inadequate" with its staff "inexperienced and untrained...

and caused the fire to accelerate by opening the main doors of the car park".The fire struck at peak season for the hotel, with 238 guests staying for the winter school holidays. Panic spread rapidly among the guests, many of whom tried to climb out of the windows, using bedsheets as ropes, some reportedly falling to their deaths. Many survivors told the same story: that there were no alarms, no fire doors, and no safe ways for people to exit the hotel.