Prosecutors in a central Turkish province issued detention warrants for 60 suspects, including 33 municipal employees, in a corruption investigation targeting a district municipality run by Turkey’s main opposition party, with police searching municipal offices and homes on Thursday, Turkish Minute reported.
The operation targeted the Tepebaşı Municipality, one of two central districts in the western province of Eskişehir.
Tepebaşı is run by Ahmet Ataç, a mayor from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Eskişehir prosecutors said the investigation concerns allegations of office.
The prosecutor’s office said the case was based on reports from Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), the Tax Inspection Board, Interior Ministry inspectors, experts, police reports, bank records, crypto asset accounts and witness statements.
Prosecutors alleged that some municipal tenders involved irregularities, especially in purchases by the municipality’s Culture, Arts and Social Affairs Directorate.
The prosecutor’s office said assets belonging to suspects and linked companies were seized based on MASAK reports.
Police carried out searches at municipal offices and at suspects’ homes and workplaces.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said 23 suspects had so far been detained in operations centered in Eskişehir and also carried out in Ankara and Adana.
Anadolu said the detainees included a deputy mayor, identified only by the initials S.Y., and Mayor Ataç’s private secretary, identified as Ö.E.
Ataç attended a symposium while the operation was taking place and had not made a statement on the investigation, according to the İhlas news agency.
The operation comes amid a series of criminal investigations targeting municipalities controlled by the CHP since October 2024, months after the party won a plurality of the national vote ahead of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the March 2024 local elections.
The crackdown on CHP-run municipalities intensified after the March 2025 jailing of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival, with 23 CHP mayors having been jailed at some point since the 2024 vote, 20 in jail and 25 removed from office.
