Turkish Press Review
Turkish dailies covered testimony from the owner of a mining company in connection with a fatal accident plus details of a multi-million dollar art heist from an Ankara museum last year.
ISTANBUL
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Turkish dailies extensively covered courtroom remarks by the owner of the flood-hit Has Sekerler Mining Company, Saffet Uyar, and operating manager, Yavuz Ozsoy.
The pair said they manually tested leak water in the Ermenek mine in southern province of Karaman where 18 miners were trapped by flooded water on October 28.
The front page of today’s HURRIYET reads: “Disaster test in glass.”
The newspaper quoted Ozsoy as saying: “The water in the mine leaked from time to time. We tested the origin of the water by tasting samples of it. By this method, we tried to determine whether it is natural underground water or dirty water leaked from another, older mine.”
Five out of eight people, who were being held in pre-trial detention, were arrested late on Monday as part of an investigation into the flooding.
Ermenek District Courthouse ordered the arrest of the five who were referred to court over the accident for “involuntarily causing death by negligence.”
SABAH wrote: “Illiterate mine owner.” The daily quoted mine owner Uyar who said in his testimony to the court: “I didn’t know we reached the old mine; I never heard of mine flooding. I can’t afford to buy a machine drill.”
There were 34 workers inside the mine – located some 400 kilometers south of the capital, Ankara – when a water pipe exploded and caused the flood last month.
Last week search-and-rescue teams found the bodies of two of the 18 workers who couldn't escape from the flood.
In other news, Turkish dailies also covered the robbery at the State Museum of Painting and Sculpture in Ankara last year.
MILLIYET ran the headline: “Painting is fake; the painter is imported.”
The daily reported that experts from the Ukrainian Aivazovsky Painting Academy were brought in by the robbers to make the replicas of original artifacts stolen from the museum.
The daily claimed that among those arrested were the museum’s security official Veli Topal, his friend and alleged leader of the gang Ahmet Sari and an antique dealer called Mete Aktuna who is accused of building a studio in Istanbul in order to make replicas of the stolen artifacts.
The daily also said that the criminals made profit of $250 million by selling the stolen paintings to businessmen and antique dealers.
“300 million dollar robbery.” said HABERTURK.
According to Turkey’s Culture Ministry, a total of 302 pieces were stolen in last year’s theft.
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