Osman Bulut, the former deputy mayor of the southeastern Turkish city of Adiyaman, and five other former public officials from the city appeared in court Thursday as their trial in connection with the collapse of the city’s Isias hotel, which killed 72 people, including 35 Cypriots, continued.

The hotel collapsed during the first of two powerful earthquakes which hit the southeast of Turkey on February 6, 2023, with 24 of the 35 Cypriots who were killed having been children.

Alongside Bulut, former Adiyaman town planning directors Mehmet Salih Alkayis and Yusuf Gul, civil engineer Bilal Balci, building auditor Abdurrahman Karaarslan, and technician Fazli Karakus all appeared in court.

Bulut insisted in court on Thursday that he had only signed off on projects which had already been prepared.

“The projects had already been signed and prepared. I only signed the permit. It was not my responsibility to prepare any reports. The municipality’s operations and procedures are so complex that I cannot recall them,” he said, before asking for additional time to read a report submitted by Izmir’s Dokuz Eylul University into the matter last Friday.

That report had found that Bulut, Alkayis, and Balci all bear responsibility, with Alkayis telling the court that he would object to the report, and also saying that he “could not recall” whether a demolition order had been issued against the Isias hotel.

His lawyer called for a new report to be written.

Balci, meanwhile, said he had “partially” read the report, and that it “contains some incomplete and inaccurate assessments”.

“I was not even at the Adiyaman municipality during the construction process,” he said.

The next hearing has been scheduled for January 19.

Ahead of the day’s hearing, Rusen Karakaya, whose daughter Selin was among the 24 Cypriot children who died in the hotel’s collapse, said outside court that she and the families of the other Cypriot children had attended the day’s hearing to demand “justice”, before criticising those who stand accused of contributing to the hotel’s collapse.

“Greed, avarice, lack of oversight, and officials who turned a blind eye. They all came together and took 72 of our lives. We no longer want to hear excuses, reduced sentences, or charges of ‘negligence’. This was not an accident, it was a massacre,” she said.

She also made reference to the fact that last week, a man was handed 865 years in jail after a block of flats he owned in the city of Adana collapsed during the February 6 earthquakes, killing 96 people.

“We expect the Adiyaman court to display the courage of the court in Adana, because for us, delaying justice means a new collapse every single day,” she said.

“We want justice not just for the past, but so that no other child in this country will ever die in a dark building again. We are here so that no mother’s heart and no father’s heart will ever be broken again. Justice will only be served on the day that a verdict is handed down convicting these people of intent. Until that day, we will fight as long as we breathe.”

Meanwhile, the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel also travelled to Adiyaman to attend proceedings and said the Turkish Cypriot people “have made a promise to our champion angels”, the name colloquially given to the 24 Cypriot children who died, and that “we will all be in Adiyaman until justice is served”.

“We want all those who commit crimes to be held accountable. We have confidence in the Republic of Turkey’s justice system. Our fight will continue,” he said.

At the case’s previous hearing, Bulut had told the court that he had “no technical knowledge” and that he therefore could not be held liable for the hotel’s collapse.

“I was a history teacher. As far as I remember, I started working as Adiyaman’s deputy mayor in 1994. Before I started there, the rough construction of the Isias hotel had already been completed,” he said.

In December last year, six other people, including the hotel’s owner and architect, were found guilty of causing death by conscious negligence leading to the building’s collapse.