Istanbul mayor presents defense in corruption case

ISTANBUL: Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and a leading opposition figure, is due to present his defense in court on Wednesday, at the latest hearing in his trial for corruption.
Imamoglu, considered to be the main opposition challenger to Turkiye’s veteran President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been in custody since March last year.
The 55-year-old politician has been appearing at a prison court since March this year with 414 co-defendants, 59 of whom are also in detention.
But last week he was accused of disrupting proceedings and was removed from the courtroom after a heated exchange with the presiding judge about the order and schedule of defense arguments.
On Tuesday, the judge announced that Imamoglu would be called to present his defense on Wednesday, according to BirGun, a newspaper close to the opposition.
The judge said he “could again be removed if he disrupts the proper conduct of the hearing.”
The mayor was arrested on the day that he was nominated as the opposition CHP candidate in presidential elections in 2028.
CHP president-elect Ozgur Ozel is expected to attend the court hearing, along with other supporters.
In a statement published on his X account, Imamoglu denounced what he said was a “very serious violation of (his) rights and the height of injustice.”
“The court is restricting and ignoring the arguments presented in their defense by the people most heavily targeted by the indictment and by their lawyers,” he added.
“This proves that the entire Istanbul metropolitan authority case has collapsed and is turning into a series of extrajudicial decisions.”
Imamoglu, who was triumphantly re-elected in March 2024 as mayor of Turkiye’s biggest city, denies having led a vast criminal network.
He is facing 142 charges and risks a sentence of 2,430 years in prison if convicted.