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One year after the Grand Kartal Hotel fire in Kartalkaya, a ski resort in Bolu, families who lost loved ones say grief has been inseparable from a legal process they view as unfinished and arduous.
The Jan. 21, 2025 blaze killed 78 people, including 34 children, injured 137, and was recorded as the sixth deadliest hotel fire in the world in terms of loss of life.
Survivors told investigators and the court that basic fire safety systems did not protect guests in the first critical minutes, including accounts that alarms did not activate and that the building lacked adequate fire escape and smoke detection measures. Some guests said they escaped by tying sheets and blankets together and climbing down from windows.
The criminal trial against hotel owners, managers and several local public officials reached a verdict in 2025.
Yet by early 2026, the case entered a new stage defined by appeals and separate, slower-moving processes concerning central government officials and additional actors that families say must still face accountability.
A court-appointed expert report submitted to the Bolu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on March 23, 2025, described a chain of failures beginning in a restaurant area on the fourth floor.
The report said a grill plate device was left on and a thermostat malfunction led to overheating, with the fire spreading to a nearby trash container minutes later. It said the heat then melted a flexible LPG hose and, once the gas ignited, the blaze reached an uncontrollable scale.
The same report framed the disaster as foreseeable and preventable with basic measures, arguing that omissions were directly linked to the fire’s ignition, spread and death toll.
It attributed the primary fault to multiple layers of responsibility, including:
The expert report described the fire as predictable and preventable. It stated that basic technical measures such as functioning alarms, adequate smoke detection, proper fire escape infrastructure and trained staff response protocols could have contained the blaze in its early minutes.
Instead, a chain of ignored deficiencies allowed a routine kitchen ignition to become a mass casualty disaster. Investigators concluded that institutional oversight breakdowns combined with deliberate neglect by hotel leadership created the conditions for mass loss of life and established a direct legal link between inspection failures, management decisions and the eventual death toll.
The indictment was completed on May 17, 2025 and a criminal case was opened against 32 suspects, including 19 held in pretrial detention at the time.
Proceedings began on July 7, 2025 at the Bolu 1st High Criminal Court in a specially prepared courtroom due to public interest and attendance by families.
On Oct. 31, 2025, the court announced a sweeping verdict. It sentenced 11 defendants, including hotel owner Halit Ergul, to 34 life sentences for the deaths of 34 children, and for the deaths of 44 adults, imposed 44 separate prison terms of 24 years and 11 months.
The convictions were based on “olasi kast,” applied when defendants are judged to have accepted the possibility of fatal outcomes despite not directly aiming for them. No sentence reductions were applied.
The court’s reasoned decision, issued on Dec. 8, 2025, criticized long-term omissions and failures during the emergency.
It said board members and senior executives did not use the initial critical minutes to rescue guests, took no measures to prevent likely outcomes and left the hotel without warning those inside.
The prosecution’s appeal is now the most contentious issue for families. The Bolu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office applied to the regional appellate level, arguing that some defendants should be punished not for acceptance of fatal risk but for “bilincli taksir,” commonly translated as conscious negligence. Families fear this would substantially reduce penalties.
Zeynep Kotan, who lost her 18-year-old son, said the appeal reopened trauma for families who had followed every hearing.
“The reasoned decision is very clear. These board members are directly responsible. Changing the charge now would be deeply painful for families,” she said, as reported by Cumhuriyet.
Families’ criticism centers less on whether hotel owners were punished and more on whether the state oversight apparatus will face equivalent scrutiny. Several processes remain open, and families repeatedly describe them as slow.
A central legal barrier in Türkiye is the requirement for an administrative investigation permit for certain categories of public officials, which can delay or block criminal investigations.
In the Kartalkaya case, files concerning Ministry of Culture and Tourism officials and Ministry of Labor and Social Security officials were separated from the main criminal case because permit procedures were still ongoing.
Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy did not initially grant investigation permission for ministry officials. After objections by prosecutors and complainants, the Council of State ruled on Sept. 26, 2025, that the alleged acts required investigation for several named officials, overturning the refusal and granting permits.
In Türkiye’s administrative law system, certain categories of public officials cannot be criminally investigated without prior authorization from their supervising ministry or from the Council of State.
Legal observers say this mechanism often slows accountability in disasters involving public inspection failures. In the Kartalkaya case, families and lawyers argue that separating ministry oversight files from the main criminal trial created parallel justice tracks, with hotel executives facing sentencing while senior inspection authorities remain under preliminary procedural review.
For relatives, this separation has become a defining symbol of unfinished justice.
Mourning mother Kotan said nine Culture and Tourism Ministry personnel were questioned and only travel bans were imposed while they remained in office. “We have serious concerns about evidence being tampered with. These people are still in their posts, and we want them removed from duty and tried in custody,” she said.
Families also point to additional accountability tracks that have not advanced, including complaints concerning ski camp organizers and hotel staff whose testimony raised further concerns.
On the eve of the anniversary, multiple outlets focused on mourning and on the emotional toll of a year spent following court hearings rather than being able to grieve in peace.
Relatives visited the graves of children and grandchildren and described the anniversary as a moment of renewed pain. Mehmet Guner, a former lawmaker who lost his daughter, son-in-law and four grandchildren, visited their graves.
Other relatives framed the disaster as a daily rupture. Rifat Dogan, who lost his wife and daughter, described returning to an empty home.
“There is no one saying ‘Dad pick me up’ or ‘We need this for dinner.’ My house no longer cooks meals,” he said to IHA.
A victim’s mother, Sema Sahin, said her life remained fixed on Jan. 21 and described seeing her daughter’s body after the fire. She argued that if doors had been knocked on as people fled, lives could have been saved. “If they had knocked on doors while escaping, our children would be alive. Our only medicine is justice,” she said.
A senior judge who lost his son, Abdurrahman Gencbay, described the verdict as grounded in legal reasoning and warned against undermining it through appeal. “This decision has taken root in the public conscience. Touching this ruling would harm that trust,” he said.
New measures concerning accommodation facilities that do not comply with fire safety standards took effect on Jan. 9.
Victim’s mother Kotan welcomed attention to prevention but warned that rules already existed and the problem was enforcement. She emphasized the risk of delays now, during the winter school break, when hotels remain full.
Families and residents gathered outside the Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalkaya on the night of Jan. 21 at 3:17 a.m., the hour the fire began, lighting candles, mourning the lives lost.
The court has issued its verdict, yet the appeal process and delayed investigations into public officials mean the legal story of the Kartalkaya fire is not closed.
The passing of a year has not softened the absence at dinner tables, the silence in children’s bedrooms, or the unanswered questions about how a preventable fire became one of the deadliest hotel disasters in the world. Their grief now shares space with vigilance.
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