{"id":125482,"date":"2026-07-08T18:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T18:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/125482\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T18:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T18:02:14","slug":"jailed-istanbul-mayor-faces-investigation-over-courtroom-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/125482\/","title":{"rendered":"Jailed \u0130stanbul mayor faces investigation over courtroom remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/stockholmcf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Ekrem-Imamoglu.jpeg\" data-caption=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"696\" height=\"464\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Ekrem-Imamoglu-696x464.jpeg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"Ekrem I\u0307mamoglu\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turkish prosecutors on Wednesday launched a new investigation into jailed \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s main political rival, accusing him of threatening a public official over remarks he made during his corruption trial, <a href=\"https:\/\/turkishminute.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Turkish Minute <\/a>reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The chief public prosecutor\u2019s office in the Bak\u0131rk\u00f6y district of \u0130stanbul said it opened the investigation on its own initiative after \u0130mamo\u011flu told the court, \u201cI will not present a defense. I will judge,\u201d adding that he would judge those who drafted the indictment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The remarks came during a dispute between \u0130mamo\u011flu and the presiding judge over the amount of time allotted for his defense in the \u0130stanbul Metropolitan Municipality case, in which 414 people are standing trial, 59 of them in pretrial detention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u0130mamo\u011flu was removed from the courtroom after the exchange, with the judge citing Article 203 of Turkey\u2019s Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows a defendant to be expelled for disrupting the order of a hearing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The hearing was held in a courtroom across from Marmara Prison in Silivri, west of \u0130stanbul, where \u0130mamo\u011flu has been jailed since March 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u0130mamo\u011flu objected to what he described as a plan to force him to complete his defense by July 9, saying six or seven hours would not be enough to respond to an indictment seeking a prison sentence of up to 2,430 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI did not come here to be questioned. I came to express my demands,\u201d \u0130mamo\u011flu said before the judge ordered his removal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The judge told \u0130mamo\u011flu that he had come to be tried, not to judge the court, before ordering gendarmes to remove him from the courtroom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As he was being taken out, \u0130mamo\u011flu accused officials in Ankara of trying to influence the proceedings and called the Justice Ministry \u201ca ministry of collapse,\u201d according to Turkish media reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His lawyers objected to the court\u2019s handling of the hearing, saying his right to a defense had been restricted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tora Pekin, one of \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s lawyers, described the decision to remove him as arbitrary and unlawful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ousted main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party\u2019s (CHP) leader \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel, who attended the hearing in Silivri, called the trial \u201ca sham\u201d and accused the court of trying to cut short \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEven the worst courts in history tried to pretend to be courts,\u201d \u00d6zel told reporters. \u201cHere, they do not even have that concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00d6zel was removed from the leadership of the CHP after a court annulled the party\u2019s 2023 congress, citing alleged irregularities in the leadership vote, and reinstated former chairman Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u0130mamo\u011flu was jailed in March 2025, the day he was nominated as the CHP\u2019s candidate for the 2028 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He denies leading what prosecutors describe as a criminal network inside the \u0130stanbul Metropolitan Municipality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The indictment accuses him of offenses including establishing a criminal organization, bribery, bid rigging, fraud against public institutions, money laundering, unlawfully obtaining personal data and environmental crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u0130mamo\u011flu won another term as mayor in March 2024 in Turkey\u2019s largest city, a victory that cemented his status as Erdo\u011fan\u2019s most serious electoral challenger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His arrest, prosecution and suspension from office have prompted criticism from rights groups and opposition politicians, who say the case is meant to sideline him before the next presidential election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkish prosecutors on Wednesday launched a new investigation into jailed \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[2031,312,17279,1181,41704,429,8632,430,131,132,155],"class_list":["post-125482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-crackdown-on-opposition","tag-human-rights","tag-ibb-trial","tag-istanbul-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu","tag-istanbul-metropolitan-municipality-ibb","tag-oppression","tag-ozgur-ozel","tag-republican-peoples-party-chp","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-turkey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116885674505307517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}