Conviction overturned in Torbalı explosion case; defendants to be retried on November 26

The 19th Criminal Division of the Izmir Regional Court of Appeals has overturned the conviction rulings for defendants Mustafa Koç, Gülten Kul, and Osman İnce in the explosion case that occurred at a restaurant in the Torbalı district, which resulted in five deaths and 63 injuries.

The court found that the different expert evaluations concerning Koç, who replaced the cylinder one day before the explosion, Kul, the workplace owner, and İnce, the regional manager of the cylinder company, were not sufficiently discussed by the first-instance court. It emphasized that although the first-instance court based its decision on a report from the investigation phase for Kul and different reports for Koç and İnce, it failed to explain these contradictions with concrete reasoning.

The court also ruled that whether Koç and Kul's actions reached the level of conscious negligence must be discussed based on the specific characteristics of the case. A new five-member expert panel with occupational safety expertise in the fields of chemistry, mechanical engineering, metallurgy-materials, petroleum-natural gas, and civil engineering was requested to submit a report.

The court, finding that the investigation into municipal police officers and licensing-inspection officials for whom the Torbalı District Governorate granted investigation permission on August 9, 2024, was incomplete, ordered that certified copies of the relevant investigation file be attached to the case file. Following the new expert report, the defendants will appear before a judge again on November 26 at the Torbalı Heavy Penal Court.