A Turkish court has ordered the arrest of 22 people, including five district mayors from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and a former lawmaker, part of an expanding corruption investigation targeting Turkey’s opposition, Turkish Minute reported.
The arrests are linked to the fifth wave of operations conducted under four separate corruption probes launched by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office that also led to the arrest of İstanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, on corruption charges in March.
Among those put in pretrial detention in the early hours of Wednesday are Büyükçekmece Mayor Hasan Akgün, Gaziosmanpaşa Mayor Hakan Bahçetepe, Avcılar Mayor Utku Caner Çaykara, Ceyhan Mayor Kadir Aydar, Seyhan Mayor Oya Tekin, CHP party council member Baki Aydöner and former CHP lawmaker Aykut Erdoğdu.
In the fifth wave of operations, the investigation, which had been limited to İstanbul, has been extended to the southern province of Adana, leading to the arrest of the CHP mayors of the Ceyhan and Seyhan districts.
Wednesday’s arrestees were detained on Saturday when İstanbul prosecutors issued detention warrants for a total of 47 people, 36 of whom were detained. The remaining 14 suspects were released pending trial.
Video footage showing the CHP mayors and İstanbul city officials being led single file in handcuffs by police to the İstanbul Courthouse as part of the latest operation on Tuesday attracted a backlash from the CHP and critics, who called the treatment degrading, unlawful and a violation of the presumption of innocence.
The investigation targeting the CHP municipalities in İstanbul was initially launched in October 2024, beginning with the arrest and removal from office of Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer. It later expanded to include several other district mayors and culminated with the arrest of İmamoğlu.
İmamoğlu, who was serving his second term as İstanbul mayor was declared his party’s candidate for the next presidential election on March 23, the day of his arrest. Widely seen as targeting the biggest political rival to longtime President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2028 presidential election, his arrest sparked Turkey’s worst protests in a decade.
Opposition party mayors have been under immense pressure in Turkey since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) sustained its worst election defeat in the March 2024 local elections, handing over dozens of municipalities to the opposition candidates.
