Soma, Turkey--Dozens of suspects will stand trial on Monday over the mining disaster last year in the Turkish town of Soma that left 301 miners dead and tarnished the image of the government under Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Forty-five people are to stand trial, including eight former top managers from the Soma Komur group that ran the mine who have been accused of murder over the tragedy, Turkey's worst ever mining disaster.
The case will be heard around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Soma in western Turkey by a court in the town of Akhisar. The trial is expected to be lengthy, with 487 civil parties and 436 witnesses to be heard.
The accident on May 13, 2014 raised new concerns about Turkey's dire industrial safety record and exposed the lacklustre reaction of the government led by Erdogan, now president but then premier.
Erdogan had notoriously appeared to play down the disaster, saying that "accidents are in the nature of the business" and comparing it to accidents in industrial revolution-era Britain.
The tragedy sparked protests that rattled the government a year after the mass anti-government rallies in Istanbul and elsewhere, with an advisor to Erdogan flaming tensions by kicking a protestor in Soma.
AFP
