All 10 suspects, including deputy mayors of Istanbul’s Ataşehir and Kartal districts, were arrested on Friday after their detention earlier this week over alleged links to the PKK terrorist group.
Investigators found Cemalettin Yüksel, who serves as deputy mayor of Kartal, had been in contact with 313 PKK-linked suspects, while Livan Gür, deputy mayor of Ataşehir, had contact with 52 suspects.
Among the 10 suspects detained on Tuesday were assembly members of Istanbul’s Üsküdar, Sancaktepe, Fatih, Tuzla, Adalar, Şişli and Beyoğlu municipalities.
Investigations revealed that Yüksel and Gür had contact with eight suspects wanted for membership in the PKK, while eight other contacts were already jailed for PKK membership.
Several other suspects served the PKK’s so-called political formation in Istanbul.
All suspects were former members of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), while the municipalities they served were run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Authorities said the PKK had its members infiltrate metropolitan municipalities, and the suspects were working as members of the so-called People’s Democratic Congress. Each was given a title by the PKK as a “member of labor assembly,” “member of the women’s assembly,” “member of the general assembly,” etc.
Yüksel was a participant in a WhatsApp group for these so-called assemblies and often shared organizational posts.
A handwritten note seized at Yüksel’s residence claims the only way to heal from the notorious “Kobani” riots in 2014 is to “expose the truth about the incident.”
The note was referring to the riots that broke out in southeastern cities where the DEM Party's predecessor, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), provoked pro-PKK groups to attack their opponents, leading to the deaths of 37 people across the country.
The arrests are part of an investigation into “urban consensus” created by the DEM Party.
The party, linked to the PKK, supported the opposition candidates, particularly those of the CHP, in last year’s municipal elections in western cities where it had a slim chance of winning. It defined this thinly disguised alliance with the opposition as urban consensus, though this alignment was never made official.
The “urban consensus” of the DEM Party was most apparent in Esenyurt, one of the most crowded districts of Istanbul, during the last municipal elections.
The CHP, favored to win, withdrew its candidate first before replacing him with Ahmet Özer, a figure associated with the PKK figures.
Özer won the election and was arrested last year for links to the terrorist group. Özer is accused of hiring PKK-linked names for the municipality.
