Eight municipal officials, including a deputy mayor, were detained on Thursday as part of an investigation into a factory fire that killed seven workers, including three minors, in northwestern Turkey last year, the Bianet news website reported, citing relatives of the victims.
The detentions are the first time the investigation has reached municipal officials, months after families said the factory was allowed to operate despite missing licenses, inspections and basic fire safety measures.
The fire broke out on November 8, 2025, at the Ravive Kozmetik factory in Dilovası, an industrial district in Kocaeli province near İstanbul. Seven workers were killed and seven others were injured.
The detainees include a deputy mayor, current and former municipal officials responsible for building supervision and zoning and municipal police officers, according to Dilovası İşçi Katliamı Aileleri, a group formed by the victims’ families.
The officials had been suspended after the fire.
The families welcomed the detentions but said prosecutors should also investigate other public officials who had a duty to inspect the factory.
“The municipality is not enough; all responsible public officials will be tried,” the families said in a statement.
The blaze broke out in the morning at the factory, which was also used as a warehouse, and quickly engulfed the building.
Inspectors from the Social Security Institution (SGK) later said the victims were trapped inside, in part because the facility had only one exit and no emergency escape route.
Inspectors also found that the building lacked basic protections, including functional grounding, adequate ventilation, explosion-control systems, a fire escape and a fire detection and alarm system.
After the fire it emerged that the workers who died had been employed without insurance, that the factory operated in an illegal and unlicensed building and that workplace safety measures had not been taken.
The families have also said the workplace received a license despite its deficiencies, that no inspections were carried out while it continued operating and that authorities failed to seal and demolish the illegal structure.
They have said complaints submitted through CİMER, the Turkish Presidency’s communication portal, were ignored.
Despite these claims, the indictment drafted by the Gebze Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office named 16 defendants but did not include municipal or other public officials, prompting the families to launch a justice vigil in Gebze’s city square.
The families said no action had been taken against other suspended officials, including senior local officials from Turkey’s SGK and the Turkish Employment Agency who were responsible for workplace records, inspections or complaints filed through CİMER, the presidency’s public complaints system.
The trial began in March.
According to the indictment, prosecutors are seeking seven counts of aggravated life imprisonment for detained company officials on charges of killing with probable intent.
There are 16 defendants in the trial, eight of whom are in pretrial detention, while another is jailed in a separate case.
Other defendants face prison sentences ranging from two years, eight months to 22 years, six months for causing death and injury through conscious negligence. Some suspects also face charges of harboring a criminal, which carries a sentence of up to five years.
The Dilovası case has renewed concerns about workplace safety in Turkey, where fatal work accidents remain widespread.
According to the Health and Safety Labour Watch (İSİG), at least 212 workers died in work-related incidents in May, bringing the death toll for the first five months of 2026 to 835.
The group documented 2,105 work-related deaths in 2025, the highest annual total in at least a decade, indicating that workplace safety in Turkey is worsening rather than improving.
Turkey made progress in aligning its occupational health and safety legislation with European Union standards after it became an EU candidate country in 1999 and ratified the relevant International Labour Organization conventions in 2005. But labor advocates say enforcement remains weak.
According to İSİG data, nearly 35,000 workers have died in workplace accidents since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002.