Lawyer says latest criminal case against Istanbul mayor is ‘baseless’

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His lawyer said the latest criminal case launched against Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is a “baseless” plot to oust one of Turkey’s most popular opposition leaders from politics.

Imamoglu faces corruption charges in a case opened last month. Proceedings are due to resume in November, months before crucial local elections in which the opposition will seek to retain control of Istanbul and the capital, Ankara.

The charismatic Imamoglu is seen as one of the most important figures in Turkey’s opposition, and is seen as a candidate to one day challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or his successor. Erdoğan’s determination to seize control of the country’s two largest cities has made Imamoglu’s fate a test for whether the strongman’s third decade in power will turn more authoritarian.

“Let one thing be certain: The way these cases are being handled in Turkey has nothing to do with the law. “The law is being important,” Gokhan Gunaydin, a legal adviser to the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), who is representing Imamoglu, said in an interview.

İmamoğlu already faces a political ban following a court ruling in December that he insulted public officials who ordered a re-run, his first election victory as mayor in 2019. He eventually won. The US described the decision, against which Imamoglu is appealing, as “inconsistent with respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law”.

Erdoğan’s government has long been accused of using the judiciary to suppress opponents. His grip on Turkey’s courts was tightened after thousands of judges were ousted following a 2016 coup attempt, analysts say.

“The Turkish judiciary has never been independent,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, head of the Human Rights Watch office in Turkey. But it is now “increasingly controlled by the government and used by Erdoğan President as a tool to silence critics, perceived opponents or those he does not like from the political scene or civil society”. “

Imamoglu and six others are accused in a second case brought by an Istanbul prosecutor over irregularities in the awarding of tenders for public contracts. According to the indictment seen by the Financial Times, he is accused of impropriety in the public tender process and other crimes of causing damage to the public of around TL250,000. This was in a previous role as mayor of one of the city’s suburbs.

His lawyer Gunaydin said the claims were “baseless” and that “there is really no aspect of this case that can be explained by law”. Turkey’s Justice Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the case.

Kerem Güle, a professor of law at Istanbul’s Koç University, said it was too early to decide the case, but it appeared to be an example of “selective justice”, as municipal bidding processes often contain irregularities that are not investigated. .

He added, the timing of the second case against Imamoglu approaching the previous conviction shows that “there is a pattern here, and it looks very important.”

Imamoglu’s troubles are not the first time opposition politicians in Turkey have complained to prosecutors. Selahattin Demirtas, who leads the left-wing People’s Democratic Party, has been jailed in Turkey since 2016 on terrorism charges stemming from his political speeches, even though the European Court of Human Rights has ruled his detention illegal. Ankara’s CHP mayor Mansur Yavas was acquitted in 2020 of charges that he misused promissory notes while working as a lawyer.

According to the indictment, the latest case against Imamoglu was opened following a referral from the interior minister headed by Suleiman Soylu, a hardline figure who ran the ministry from 2016 until last month.

“It is an attack,” İmamoğlu told reporters on 22 June. “Possibly there will be more cases because (inspectors) will demand 30 years old case files at my construction sites” This is a reference to the time when İmamoğlu ran his family’s construction firm.

Howard Eisenstaedt, a Turkey expert at St. Lawrence University in New York State and the Middle East Institute in Washington, said: “This is not a legal process – it is a political decision on the part of the government. The court cases are not governed by law but by Erdoğan’s own political calculations.” are being determined.

“The real question is whether the risks (for Erdoğan) of banning Imamoglu outweigh the potential rewards.”