İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and his campaign director, both of whom are in pretrial detention as part of another investigation, have also been implicated in an espionage probe that led to the detention of a TV executive on Friday, Turkish Minute reported.
The new investigation came as İmamoğlu and his campaign director, Necati Özkan, have spent seven months behind bars as part of an investigation into the İstanbul Municipality on various charges that include corruption.
Police raided the home and office of journalist Merdan Yanardağ, the editor-in-chief of pro-opposition TELE 1 TV, on Friday morning and took Yanardağ into custody as part of the same investigation.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Friday that the new investigation into the jailed mayor and others is based on digital evidence seized from a businessman named Hüseyin Gün, who was arrested on July 4 on espionage charges.
It claimed Gün had links to “foreign intelligence agents” and had communicated with Özkan “in a manner suggesting instructions.”
The statement also said Yanardağ had multiple contacts with Gün and helped coordinate the media side of the opposition’s election campaign in return for personal gain.
The statement further accused Yanardağ of “collaborating with foreign intelligence services to manipulate the 2019 local elections,” when İmamoğlu, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was first elected mayor of İstanbul, dealing a huge blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which had ruled the city for years.
İmamoğlu had been elected twice since the first poll was cancelled by the country’s election authority after the AKP filed an objection, citing irregularities. He won by an even larger margin in the repeat election.
Yanardağ said in a message through his lawyer that he was in good health and described the investigation as “a fifth-grade conspiracy.”
“This is a poorly fabricated plot,” Yanardağ said, denying the allegations against him.
He also denied having interfered in the 2019 elections, saying he has never had any relationship with anyone outside his work as a journalist and does not know Gün, who was named in the investigation.
Separate probe targets city’s digital platform
A separate investigation has been launched into “İstanbul Senin” (İstanbul Is Yours), a digital city platform introduced by the İstanbul Municipality in 2021.
According to the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, a network described as the “İmamoğlu profit-driven criminal organization” allegedly leaked the personal data and location information of 4.7 million users of the app to two foreign countries and offered the personal data of another 3.7 million users for sale on the dark web.
Prosecutors also claimed that voter data belonging to 11 million people was extracted from the app’s sub-module “İBB Hanem.”
Launched in November 2021, the “İstanbul Senin” app was designed to give residents easier access to municipal services such as transportation, cultural events, social assistance and administrative transactions.
Thirteen suspects have been detained in connection to this investigation, the prosecutor’s office said.
The municipality has not yet issued an official statement regarding the allegations.
İmamoğlu, who is jailed in the notorious Marmara Prison in Silivri, has strongly condemned the espionage investigation launched into him, calling it “a disgraceful lie and conspiracy.”
“Such slander, lies and plots wouldn’t even cross the devil’s mind,” İmamoğlu said in a written statement from jail. “We are facing an act of immorality that words cannot describe.”
CHP officials also condemned the investigation, accusing the government of seeking to “criminalize election victories” of the CHP.
CHP Deputy Chairman Burhanettin Bulut said Turkey had reached a point where “criticizing the government or winning elections is treated as a crime.”
The CHP emerged as the most successful party in the March 2024 local elections, winning major municipalities, while the AKP suffered its worst election defeat.
Another deputy chair, Gökan Zeybek, said the government had “lost touch with reality,” warning that not every criticism or act of opposition should be seen as hostility.
CHP official Gül Çiftçi said prosecutors were “inventing new crimes” to prolong the process against İmamoğlu due to the lack of an indictment concerning his imprisonment in March.
İmamoğlu’s imprisonment, which sparked street protests unseen in Turkey since 2013, was widely seen as a political move targeting the CHP for the 2028 presidential race.
The jailed mayor is viewed as the strongest political rival of Erdoğan.
The new investigation into İmamoğlu came on the same day that an Ankara court dismissed a case against the party that challenged the validity of the its 2023 congress.
The CHP has been under growing pressure for about a year, leading to the arrest of more than 10 of its mayors and the detention or arrest of some 500 party officials.
