Soma mine explosion | Company owner will serve eight days in prison for every killed miner
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The 12th Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation has partly upheld the Akhisar Heavy Penal Court's ruling about the 2014 Soma mine explosion, where 301 miners were killed.
With the verdict, the 20-year prison sentence of Can Gürkan, the owner of the mining company, and the 12.5-year prison sentences of the chief inspectors, Adem Ormanoğlu and Efkan Kurt, have been upheld.
The top appeals court, however, overturned the two-year ban on the chief inspectors from working as a chief engineer of an inspection organization.
Gürkan, who benefitted from the 2020 criminal enforcement arrangement, will be put in prison again.
The 20-year sentence given to Gürkan will be reduced by half to 10 years. Three years of probation and the 4.5 years that Gürkan remained in prison will also be deducted. Hence, he will have to serve two and a half more years in prison.
Gürkan will have been imprisoned for a total of 7 years, or eight days for each of the 301 killed miners.
☛ After three of its five members were replaced, the 12th Chamber of the Court of Cassation overturned its own decision in January 2021. Had it not, the defendants would have been sentenced for "klling with eventual intent."
Dissenting opinion
The verdict was given by three to two votes. Ahmet Er, the head of the penal chamber, and judge Nadir Güngüneş expressed dissenting opinions. Three members of the chamber who were formerly bureaucrats, Kenan İpek, Fuzuli Aydoğdu and Mustafa Yapıcı gave affirmative votes.
The dissenting judges stated that the defendants should have been sentenced for "killing with eventual intent" whereas they have been sentenced for "killing by gross negligence."
According to the opinions of the dissenting judges, the defendants should have been sentenced to thousands of years in prison for killing 301 times and for injury 167 times.
Judge Er stated that Gürkan did not act accordingly despite knowing of the high risk in the mine.
Judge Güngüneş said not sentencing Gürkan for "eventual intent" would make this crime meaningless and no sentences would be given for this crime in the future.
What happened?On May 13, 2014, an explosion in the Soma coal mine in the western Manisa province caused an underground fire in the mine, which burned until May 15. 301 workers were killed and 162 were injured in what was the worst mine incident in the country's history. The trial began on April 13, 2015, and ended on July 11, 2018. There were 45 defendants and 162 injured workers as victim plaintiffs in the case. Akhisar Heavy Penal Court sentenced Soma Coal Enterprises Inc. Board Chair Can Gürkan to 15 years in prison for "killing by negligence" and banned him from mining business for three years. Soma Coal Enterprises Inc. General Director Ramazan Doğru, mining engineer and Deputy Operations Manager İsmail Adalı, Operations Manager Akın Çelik and mining engineer Ertan Arsoy were given jail terms from 15 years to 22 years and 6 months. Thirty-seven defendants, including Alp Gürkan, the owner of the company and the father of Can Gürkan, were acquitted. İzmir Regional Court of Justice 14th Penal Chamber upheld the prison sentences for the five defendants on April 19, 2019. Can Gürkan was released from prison on the same day. The Court of Cassation 12th Penal Chamber reversed the decision on September 30, 2020. It stated that Can Gürkan targeted increased production without taking required safety measures and setting up a ventilation system despite knowing that there was a high risk of fire. It stated that Gürkan, Doğru Çelik and Adalı should be sentenced for "causing deaths by probable intent" 301 times and "causing injury by probable intent" 261 times. All arrested defendants of the Soma case were released on February 5, 2021. |
(HA/VK)