The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office concluded an indictment against Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu in a case about his remarks toward an expert witness. The indictment made public on Monday says the mayor attempted to influence the expert witness after targeting him publicly and asks for prison terms between two and four years for İmamoğlu.
As the criminal cases against him and the municipality piled up, Imamoğlu held a news conference on Jan. 27, openly naming S.B., the expert witness in investigations and lawsuits involving the municipality’s companies over alleged corruption. He has claimed that S.B. was deliberately assigned to the cases to implicate him and the municipality. The Istanbul prosecutors subsequently launched an investigation over the remarks targeting S.B.
The indictment says S.B. faced a defamation campaign on social media and some media outlets after Imamoğlu’s statements. S.B., meanwhile, defended his record as an expert witness and said he was never involved in perjury or other irregularities as Imamoğlu claimed, adding that he was also appointed as an expert witness in many lawsuits involving other political parties other than Imamoğlu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP). The Istanbul mayor claims lawsuits against him and other municipalities run by CHP are politically motivated.
According to the indictment, Imamoğlu aimed to stir up allegations that the judiciary and expert witness were not neutral and objective and disrupt the work of S.B. in ongoing lawsuits and investigations. Prosecutors also ask for a political ban for Imamoğlu. A court will now assess the indictment, decide whether to proceed with the indictment, and set a trial date.
In a separate indictment, Chief Prosecutor’s Office also asks for prison terms of up to 14 years for five suspects for illegally recording a conversation with S.B. Suspects are staff of Halk TV, an opposition broadcaster aligned with CHP. Suspects are accused of targeting S.B. and secretly recording statements he made during a phone conversation with the staff of Halk TV without his consent before publicizing it.
The new investigation followed a judicial probe that was launched against Imamoğlu for “statements qualifying as threats” against Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor and his family, as well as “targeting persons tasked with countering threats and terrorism.”
The CHP has singled out the prosecutor for acting as a “guillotine” for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following the arrest of Rıza Akpolat, the CHP mayor of the city’s Beşiktaş district, on charges of corruption.
Imamoğlu was already sentenced in 2022 for insulting public officials when he criticized a decision to cancel the first round of earlier municipal elections, in which he defeated the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) candidate. He appealed against the sentence, but if higher courts upheld it, he could be banned from politics for five years.
He was re-elected as mayor last year when the AK Party saw voter support dive in previous strongholds.
Recently, Erdoğan hit out at the CHP, saying they “cannot make threats on live television.” “Nobody can threaten judicial members, put pressure on the courts or wag their fingers at our judicial committee for pursuing unlawfulness with the authority granted by law,” Erdoğan said.
