A Turkish court has ordered the release of jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu’s lawyer and seven other defendants in a corruption trial involving the municipality, the DHA news agency reported.
The ruling, issued late Thursday, led to the release of lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan and Fatoş Pınar Türker, the former general manager of the municipality-owned Medya AŞ media company.
İmamoğlu and 37 other defendants will remain in custody.
The case concerns allegations of bribery, fraud and an alleged criminal organization involving officials and businesspeople linked to opposition-run İstanbul municipality. The defendants deny any wrongdoing. Opposition politicians say the prosecution is intended to sideline İmamoğlu, a leading rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while Turkish authorities say it concerns criminal offenses.
The İstanbul 33rd High Criminal Court rejected a prosecutor’s request to keep all 46 defendants behind bars and scheduled the next hearing for January 4, 2027.
The case has 436 defendants and saw its 109th day of hearings on Thursday.
Pehlivan left prison after the release procedures were completed.
“I want to be reunited with my daughter,” he told reporters outside the prison, thanking the lawyers who had supported him and calling for others still detained to be freed.
Pehlivan had been jailed since June 19, 2025, on a charge of membership in a criminal organization. His prosecution drew condemnation from international legal and human rights organizations, which said authorities were treating his work as a defense lawyer as evidence of criminal activity.
Prosecutors alleged that he helped organize legal representation for suspects, obtain confidential information and influence witnesses. Pehlivan denied any wrongdoing.
Human Rights Watch and the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project said the case relied on vague statements from suspects cooperating with prosecutors in the hope of receiving reduced sentences.
The International Commission of Jurists, a Geneva-based organization of judges and lawyers, said the allegations concerned legitimate professional activities and that his detention threatened the independence of lawyers and the right to a fair trial.
Pehlivan had previously been detained in March 2025 on separate money laundering allegations and released under judicial supervision, including a foreign travel ban. He said he was being targeted for representing İmamoğlu.
Türker’s detention had also attracted scrutiny after she told a court in June that police subjected her to a strip-search and that a prosecutor threatened to have social services take custody of her children unless she gave the statement prosecutors wanted.
İstanbul police denied any unlawful treatment. The interior ministry subsequently appointed a civil inspector and a police inspector to investigate the allegations. Its announcement did not name Türker.
She was detained on March 19, 2025, during the sweeping corruption investigation into the opposition-run İstanbul Municipality and later jailed pending trial.
The other defendants released under Thursday’s ruling were Medya AŞ procurement manager Fatoş Ayık, businessmen Serhat Kapki and Ahmet Köksal, municipal cultural company deputy general manager Onur Aldı, quarry weigh bridge supervisor Volkan Ateş and Murat Or, an aide to the head of the municipality’s landscaping company.
Those ordered to remain in custody included İmamoğlu’s adviser Murat Ongun, campaign strategist Necati Özkan and Beylikdüzü district mayor Mehmet Murat Çalık.
İmamoğlu, a leading political rival of Erdoğan, was jailed on corruption charges and suspended from office in March 2025. His detention sparked widespread protests across Turkey.
Addressing the court Thursday, İmamoğlu again rejected the case against him, challenging the credibility of confidential witnesses and accusing prosecutors of using sentence-reduction provisions to pressure suspects into making false allegations.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
