Expert report on the Kartalkaya fire! 'Secret tunnel' detail draws attention

The expert committee investigating the hotel fire disaster in Bolu Kartalkaya, which claimed 78 lives, gave a presentation yesterday to the commission established in Parliament regarding the incident.

Speaking there, Dr. Hikmet İskender, a member of the expert committee, stated that there is a tunnel leading to the Kartal Hotel, which is close to the burned-down Grand Kartal Hotel.

Stating that the tunnel between these two hotels was entered even after the fire, İskender said, "There is a tunnel connection between the two hotels. We requested the security camera footage. For some reason, the recordings up to February 22 have been deleted."

Explaining what they saw from the recovery footage of the cameras, İskender stated, "On certain dates, that place turned into a thoroughfare. We don't know who entered or left, whether they had good intentions, or what they took or brought, but these are being questioned."

USED EVEN FOR SHOPPING

Giving an example of a conversation they had with people who used the tunnel after the fire, İskender said, "They say: 'We are coming back from shopping.' Now, you were coming back from shopping, but what business do you have in a tunnel between two hotels? Some evidence may have been intended to be destroyed there."

Stating that there were people who entered the fire zone during their investigations despite it being closed to civilian access, İskender said, "It was a secure area, cordoned off by the gendarmerie; a citizen came. The prosecutor and the major asked, 'What are you looking for?' He said, 'I'm just passing through here.' My brother, this is a cordoned-off area. If you put something there and we found it later, we would say, 'There is sabotage here.' Or if you took something from here, how would we know?"

PRELIMINARY REPORT SHARED BY ÖZEL DOES NOT EXIST

The preliminary expert report shared by CHP Chairman Özgür Özel regarding the fire disaster was also brought up in the commission.

AK Party member Nurettin Alan thanked the expert committee for the report they prepared and said, "The release of this report has also relieved us as the AK Party. There was a report that was said to be circulating on the internet, both in our commission and in the General Assembly of Parliament. We faced accusations such as, 'The AK Party will protect the owners of this hotel. They swept the report under the rug. The newly appointed experts are the AK Party's cronies, they brought in people who will whitewash those places.'"

Prof. Dr. Ramazan Çağlayan, who is also on the expert committee, shared information regarding the report shared by Özel, saying, "I asked the Chief Public Prosecutor about that report that was said to be circulating in the market. He said, 'No such report was submitted to us.'"