Authorities detained 29 people on Wednesday after issuing detention warrants for 37 suspects in two separate investigations involving the Antalya municipality in southern Turkey, in the latest expansion of a crackdown on the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkish Minute reported.
In the larger case, prosecutors ordered the detention of 34 suspects in an investigation targeting ANSET, a company affiliated with the Antalya municipality. That figure includes people who were already in jail, with the operation resulting in 27 new detentions. The reports said two suspects were abroad and three were still being sought. Suspended Antalya Mayor Muhittin Böcek, who was already in pretrial detention in a separate case, was also named in that detention order.
In a second, separate investigation led by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, prosecutors issued detention warrants for three suspects, including Böcek’s daughter-in-law Zuhal Böcek. Turkish media said Zuhal Böcek and one other suspect were detained, while a third remained at large.
The allegations in the Antalya-linked files have centered on bribery, corruption and illicit dealings involving municipal companies and construction-related matters.
Böcek, a CHP politician who was elected mayor of Antalya, a major Mediterranean city and tourism hub, was first arrested in July 2025 in a bribery investigation and later suspended from office. A court issued another arrest order for him in April 2026 in a separate corruption case tied to a municipal infrastructure firm, even though he was already jailed.
The Antalya operations are part of a broader campaign against CHP-run municipalities that began in late 2024 and intensified after the March 2025 jailing of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political rival. Recent tallies in Turkish media say 23 CHP mayors have been jailed at some point since the March 31, 2024, local elections, 20 remain in jail and 25 have been removed from office.
CHP officials say the cases are politically motivated and are being used to roll back the party’s strong gains in the 2024 local elections, when it finished first nationwide in a vote for the first time since 1977 and won many of Turkey’s biggest cities.
