The prosecutor in Turkey’s biggest city has accused popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of 142 corruption offences that command jail terms ranging from 828 to 2,352 years.
Imamoglu, considered the main political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been in pre-trial custody since March on suspicion of corruption.
The Istanbul mayor and his opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deny any wrongdoing and accuse the president and his allies of launching a crackdown in response to Erdogan’s decline in popularity.
However, the city’s chief prosecutor has targeted not just Imamoglu but 401 others, with allegations of running a criminal corruption network with the mayor as its “founder and leader”.
After an eight-month inquiry, prosecutor Akin Gürlek said the suspects, of whom 105 were in detention, had formed an enormous criminal organisation that had been engaged in taking and receiving bribes as well as money laundering.
The cost in losses to the Turkish state amounted to 160bn lira (£2,9bn; $3.8bn), he said.
Imamoglu, who is the secular CHP’s candidate for presidential elections in 2028, has been cited on 12 counts of bribery, seven counts of money laundering from criminal proceeds and a further seven counts of fraud against public institutions and organisations.
Anadolu news agency estimated the charges would carry a prison sentence of 2,430 years.
The mayor’s detention in March triggered widespread protests, hundreds of arrests and a police crackdown. Ever since, he has been held in Marmara prison on the outskirts of Istanbul.
Apart from the corruption case, prosecutors have accused him of a raft of other offences including espionage and forging his university diploma, a qualification that has since been annulled.
Turkish authorities deny the mayor’s allegation that the judiciary is being used as a political tool. However, without a university diploma he cannot stand for the presidency in 2028.
As the prosecutor gave details of the corruption allegations, party leader Özgür Özel told a meeting of the CHP’s parliamentary group as that no-one else in their party would run for the presidency as the Istanbul mayor had been nominated by millions of Turks.
“His crime is to run for the next presidency of this country. He has no other crime!”
Imamoglu, 54, was first elected mayor in 2019 and he was re-elected in April 2024, defeating the governing AK Party candidate by almost a million votes.
He has already appealed against a July jail term of a year and eight months for insulting and threatening the Istanbul prosecutor. He is also appealing against an earlier jail sentence for criticising election officials.
The espionage case, launched two weeks ago, alleges that Imamoglu handed over data of Istanbul residents in return for international funding.
Imamoglu has warned Turks to “forget this espionage nonsense”.
Party leader Özgür Özel has accused authorities of trying to invent offences to prevent the mayor’s release from prison.
“Could he have committed electoral fraud, had a fake diploma, been a thief, a terrorist and a spy at the same time?” he asked his parliamentary colleagues on Tuesday.