The owner of a block of flats which collapsed, killing 96 people inside, and who then attempted to flee to Cyprus to start a new life in the hours after the building’s collapse, has had his prison sentence reduced from an initial 865 years down to 22 and a half years, on appeal.

Hasan Alpargun owned the eponymous Alpargun apartment building in the southeastern Turkish city of Adana, which collapsed on February 6, 2023, in the aftermath of the two devastating earthquakes which hit the region on that day.

However, Adana is located more than 180 kilometres away from the first earthquake’s epicentre and more than 210km away from the second earthquake’s epicentre, with only 11 apartment buildings in the city, which is home to over 1.8 million people, collapsing on February 6, 2023.

Following the building’s collapse, an arrest warrant was issued in Alpargun’s name, but it was quickly determined that he had taken a flight from Adana to northern Cyprus’ Ercan (Tymbou) airport on the day of the earthquakes.

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According to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, Alpargun then tried to transfer $990,000, €890,000, and 500,000TL from a bank account in Turkey to a bank account in the north, before then attempting to buy an apartment in northern Nicosia.

However, the Turkish police quickly located him, and he surrendered himself to the Turkish Cypriot police shortly afterwards, before being returned to Adana and arrested on February 13, 2023.

He had initially been handed 62 concurrent life sentences – a total of 865 years in prison – for causing the death of more than one person with possible intent by Adana’s 12th high criminal court in September last year, but Adana’s provincial court of justice overturned the verdict and returned the case to the 12th high criminal court.

That court had initially held firm, but following an appeal, his conviction for causing death by probable intent was overturned, and as such, he will serve a considerably reduced sentence.

Alpargun’s case is one of numerous similar cases which have been examined by Turkey’s judiciary in the three years since the earthquakes, with one of the most high-profile of the cases having come about regarding the collapse of the Isias hotel in the city of Adiyaman.

The Isias hotel had housed the Famagusta Turk Maarif Koleji middle school volleyball team on the night of the first earthquake, and when it collapsed, 72 people, including 35 Cypriots – of whom 24 were children – were killed.

In that case, too, the families of the Cypriot children had sought for the building’s owner and numerous other linked individuals, including Adiyaman’s former deputy mayor Osman Bulut, to be convicted of causing death by probably intent.

However, thus far, courts have been unwilling to acquiesce, with the most recent ruling in January having seen Bulut and five other former public officials spared jail.

Adiyaman’s first high criminal court ruled that it would not be possible to convict the defendants for causing death by probable intent “because they hoped that the foreseeable outcome would not occur or relied on chance”.