Trial begins in Turkey over electrocution of Cypriot student in flood

The court case over the death of a Cypriot medical student who was electrocuted during a flood in the Turkish Aegean city of Izmir in July began on Thursday.

Ozge Ceren Abi, who was 23 years old and in the fifth year of her course, was electrocuted while attempting to cross a road in Izmir during a flood on July 12. A 44-year-old man named Inanc Oktemay was also killed when he attempted to help Abi.

A total of 42 people have been arrested over the incident, with it believed that electrical cables under the street had not been laid sufficiently deep underground, and had not been sufficiently insulated.

As a result, when the street flooded, the water was electrified.

Izmir’s Konak borough mayor Nilufer Cinarli Mutlu had said in July that the cables should have been at least 80 centimetres below surface level, while they appeared to have been only 30 centimetres below ground.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s chamber of electrical engineers had said there was an “insulation error” in the cables running from the transformer stations to the distribution panel on the street.

“It is believed that this defect caused the tragic loss of life,” they said.

Outside court on Thursday, Abi’s father Ahmet Abi made a statement, saying, “I want the people and institutions responsible for this incident to be punished in the most severe way. I want justice to prevail.”

The north’s ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli travelled to Izmir to be present in court and met with Izmir’s chief public prosecutor Fahri Mutlu Tosun on Wednesday.

After the meeting, he also said the cables had not been laid sufficiently deep, and that “frequent complaints” about the street had been made to both the local authorities and to Gediz Electricity Distribution, the privatised regional electricity distribution company which serves the Izmir and Manisa provinces.

He also pointed out that a headline had appeared on the front page of Izmir local newspaper the Ege Telegraf in 2019, reading, “Does someone have to die for this to be solved?”, and that “no one paid attention”.