Drivers jailed over fatal car accidents

TWO drivers have been jailed for causing fatal crashes — one of them seven years after the tragedy.

Kemal İzveren had ploughed into two men standing outside a Haspolat tyre shop at 9.30pm on August 14, 2011, killing one and badly injuring the other.

Lefkoşa Assizes Court heard that the case had taken so long to come to court because notification had not been served on İzveren, even though he had remained living at the same address.

İzveren admitted causing death and injury by careless driving, and judge Fadıl Aksun said the court had taken the delay in the hearing into account when passing a two-and-ahalf year sentence.

Mr Aksun said İzveren had been on the main Lefkoşa-Gazimağusa road, driving too close to the car in front at 110kph, when that vehicle had braked.

İzveren had steered sharply to the left to avoid hitting it and careered off the road and through a ditch, hitting Shahid Zaman and Akhar Wali. Mr Zaman died instantly.

Atıf Sunar, 38, was jailed for three years on Wednesday for a fatal crash in April, when he was behind the wheel of a borrowed car — with neither tax nor insurance — which crossed to the wrong side of the road and hit 60-year-old Hasan Maraşlı’s vehicle head-on, killing him.

Gazimağusa Assizes Court also ruled that Sunar, a Turkish national in the country with a tourist visa, should lose his driving licence for a year after his release from prison.