Turkish prosecutors have issued detention warrants for 22 people as part of an expanding corruption investigation into the opposition-run İstanbul Municipality, whose mayor has been in pretrial detention since March 23, Turkish Minute reported.
Among the targets in the latest operation is Taner Çetin, head of the municipality’s Department of Press, Publications and Public Relations.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday that Çetin is accused of rigging municipal tenders in favor of companies linked to him and accepting bribes in return. Prosecutors claim he used illicit proceeds to acquire both movable and immovable assets. According to a financial investigation report submitted by Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), some of these payments were allegedly funneled indirectly through municipal subsidiaries Media Inc. and Culture Inc.
Prosecutors say additional funds were also transferred from these companies to other employees and that approximately 22 people including municipal staff, company executives and business associates are under investigation. Search and seizure orders were issued along with the detention warrants on Tuesday.
The operation is the third wave in a broader investigation that includes both corruption and terrorism allegations. İmamoğlu, a senior figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the party’s presidential candidate for the next election, was detained on March 19 and arrested on March 23. The charges directed against him are seen widely as politically motivated.
İmamoğlu was removed from office following his arrest and is currently in pretrial detention at Marmara Prison in Silivri. His detention and subsequent arrest led to widespread protests across the major provinces in the country, unseen since 2013.
Dozens of other municipal officials and opposition politicians were also arrested along with İmamoğlu as part of the same investigation in March.
Meanwhile, CHP officials denounced Tuesday’s operation as politically motivated. CHP Deputy Chair Burhanettin Bulut criticized the latest detentions, calling them “a campaign of intimidation and suppression orchestrated through the judiciary.”
“This is not the law in action,” Bulut said on social media. “It is a show of force using the judiciary as a tool. The government continues its discrediting campaign against our presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu without presenting a single piece of credible evidence.”
CHP parliamentary group leader Ali Mahir Başarır voiced those concerns in a television interview, calling the investigation “a disgrace to justice.”
“If this is what our legal system looks like in the 21st century, then shame on us,” Başarır said. “Their sole aim is to incapacitate the İstanbul Municipality by imprisoning all its top officials and the mayor. The judiciary is acting like the mafia.”
Critics say President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to sideline İmamoğlu, his strongest political rival, in the next presidential race, with the ongoing crackdown on him and his party.
İmamoğlu’s arrest came following months of growing judicial pressure on the party that led to the arrest and removal from office of several of its mayors in İstanbul on either terrorism or corruption charges, seen as politically motivated.
