A former mayor and real estate investor was sentenced in Turkey to 16 years and three months in prison for the collapse of a building that killed 16 people during a catastrophic earthquake in 2023, Turkish media reported.
The court convicted Okes Kavak of "causing death or injury to more than one person through conscious negligence" during the demolition of a building he was an investor in in the small town of Nurdagi, in the province of Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey.
The court also accused him of using forged documents to obtain a building permit.
Okes Kavaka, who was elected mayor of Nurdagi, is on trial for the collapse of another building that killed 36 people.
Nurdagi was severely damaged in the 7,8-magnitude earthquake of February 2023, when more than 53.000 people died in Turkey, and more than 6.000 in neighboring Syria.
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