A Turkish engineer linked to the collapse of a building during a deadly earthquake in Adana, Turkey in February 2023 has been arrested at a hotel in this beach city in Chon Buri.
Abdullah Aybaba, 76, was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, according to investigators at the Chon Buri Immigration Bureau.
Police searched a hotel in Pattaya at 5pm on Wednesday after receiving a tip-off that a foreign national with an international arrest warrant was hiding there.
Mr Aybaba was taken into custody and brought to the provincial immigration office, where officials revoked his visa. He was handed over to investigators at the Nong Prue police station for further legal proceedings.
Turkish authorities had been seeking Mr Aybaba’s arrest in connection with a building collapse in the southern city of Adana following the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that resulted in more than 60,000 deaths in Turkey and Syria on Feb 6, 2023.
Forty people were killed and two injured when the Sami Bey apartment building collapsed in Adana. A subsequent investigation found the building had been constructed with illegal, substandard materials, which contributed to the collapse.
Mr Aybaba, as the contractor and construction supervisor, is among four people facing trial for negligence causing death, with prosecutors seeking prison terms of up to 2 years.
Mr Aybaba’s daughter, who has lived in England since 2017, is also a defendant, according to the Turkish news site Haberler.com. She maintains her innocence, saying shares in her father’s company had been transferred to her without her knowledge and that she had nothing to do with the construction project.