Employer fined for worker’s death by forced sewer cleaning
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Threatened with dismissal, forced to clean the sewer at the İstanbul University Çapa Medical Faculty and catching an infection as a result, 26-year-old worker Zafer Açıkgözoğlu lost his life in 2014.
The trial over his death has ended eight years later. The court sentenced the employer to 2 years in prison. The prison sentence has been converted into a judicial fine due to the "remorse" of the employer.
As reported by Tolga Balcı from Yeni Yaşam, the lawyers of Açıkgözoğlu filed a criminal complaint against both the university administration and the subcontractor. The prosecutor's office conducting the investigation appointed an expert in 2017. The expert detected that both the rectorate and the company acted in violation of the occupational health and safety rules.
In the same year, the Forensic Medicine Institution also found that the worker had caught an infection after getting in the sewage and suffered from liver failure as a result, concluding that there was a causal link between the incident and the death of Zafer Açıkgözoğlu.
The court has found the Doğuş Social Services company, which was directed by Cafer Erdoğan, guilty of Zafer Açıkgözoğlu's death and convicted the employer of causing death by negligence.
As indicated by Onur Yıldız, the lawyer of the case, the court first sentenced company's director Cafer Erdoğan to 2 years in prison. It has then converted the prison sentence into a judicial fine of 12 thousand 100 Turkish Lira (TRY) on the grounds that the defendant showed "remorse".
The court has also ruled that Cleaning Services Director of the company Gülseven Yangın shall be acquitted of the offense charged.
What happened?
On June 14, 2013, when it rained heavily, the ground floor of the Emergency Traumatology building was flooded and Zafer Açıkgözoğlu was assigned with unclogging the canals. It was his second month on the job. He said that it was not his duty but he was threatened with dismissal by the subcontracting company. Afterwards, he and a team accompanying him cleaned and unclogged the canals without taking any security measures.
After the incident, Açıkgözoğlu and the six workers who worked with him applied to the emergency service with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Açıkgözoğlu was discharged from the hospital afterwards, but his health condition got worse. He went to the polyclinic again as he was still having aches in his body and bloody diarrhea a week later. He was diagnosed with acute hepatitis. He underwent a liver transplant on June 26 and was taken to the service. However, his condition deteriorated again and he lost his life in the intensive care unit two weeks later. (HA/SD)