An Istanbul court adjourned the trial of the city’s former mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, to Jan. 4, instructing the case to be referred to prosecutors for preparation of their closing arguments in the case where Imamoğlu faces thousands of years in prison on charges of corruption.

At a hearing which continued into the early hours of Friday, the court ruled for the release of eight defendants in the case, including businesspeople, a lawyer for Imamoğlu and director and staff of the municipality’s subsidiaries.

Imamoğlu is accused by prosecutors of running a criminal organization thriving on bribes and tender rigging. The mayor, who was arrested in March 2025, denies the charges and claims the trial, which is underway in the Silivri courthouse-prison complex where he is also in custody, is politically motivated. He has been in custody along with 46 other defendants in the sprawling corruption case. A total of 436 defendants are being tried, and most of them were released with judiciary control in earlier hearings.

The indictment identifies Imamoğlu as the alleged "leader of a criminal organization” and accuses him of offenses including forming an organization to commit crimes, bribery, money laundering, fraud against public institutions, unlawfully recording and obtaining personal data, concealing evidence, obstructing communications, damaging public property, publicly disseminating misleading information, extortion, bid-rigging, deliberate environmental pollution and violations of tax, forestry and mining laws.

Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of between 828 years, two months and 2,352 years for the ex-mayor over 142 alleged acts.