Managers jailed over mining disaster

Managers and employees of a mine in western Turkey have been sentenced to between six and 22 years in prison over the deaths of 301 people in the country’s worst mining disaster.

The miners were killed in 2014 by a fire that raged inside the coal mine in Soma, western Turkey.

The tragedy exposed poor safety standards and superficial government inspection sin Turkey’ s mines. More than 160 other people came out of the mine with injuries.

The court in the nearby city of Manisa found the CEO, technical director, operations manager and supervisor of Soma Komur Is let mel er iA S guilty of involuntary man slaughter and sentenced them to between 18 and 22 years each. The company’s owner, Can Gurkan, was given 15 years.

Nine other employees were sentenced to between six and ten years in prison while 37 defendants were acquitted.

As the verdicts were being read, families of the victims protested that the sentences were too lenient.