{"id":36277,"date":"2026-03-09T17:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T17:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/36277\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T17:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T17:27:15","slug":"landmark-trial-begins-in-turkey-against-jailed-erdogan-rival-imamoglu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/36277\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmark trial begins in Turkey against jailed Erdo\u011fan rival \u0130mamo\u011flu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u0130stanbul\u2019s jailed mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu went on trial Monday in a sweeping corruption case critics say is a politically motivated attempt to derail his chances of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, Agence France-Presse reported.<\/p>\n

But the hearing \u2014 which began around 11:00 am (0800 GMT), got off to a bumpy start, with the judge suspending proceedings after barely 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Detained on March 19 of last year and jailed ever since, \u0130mamo\u011flu appeared before the Silivri court for the opening of a sweeping graft case in which prosecutors want him jailed for 2,430 years.<\/p>\n

Cheers of \u201cWe are proud of you!\u201d erupted from the gallery as he and scores of other defendants entered the courtroom for a trial involving more than 400 people, the mayor\u2019s team and journalists in the room wrote on X.<\/p>\n

When the trial opened, the judge said \u0130mamo\u011flu would be one of the last to testify, prompting the mayor, who is the principle accused, to ask to speak sooner.<\/p>\n

But the judge refused, drawing cries of \u201cShame, shame!\u201d from the gallery.<\/p>\n

Then when a defense lawyer asked why the order of witnesses had been leaked to a pro-government newspaper but not supplied to the defense team, the judge cleared the court and suspended the session.<\/p>\n

It was due to resume in the early afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u0130mamo\u011flu was jailed on the day he was named the presidential candidate of the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP).<\/p>\n

He is widely seen as one of the only politicians capable of defeating Erdo\u011fan at the ballot box in national elections due before mid-2028.<\/p>\n

\u2018A conspiracy case\u2019<\/p>\n

Among those at the hearing was CHP leader \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel and \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s wife Dilek, as well as other party officials, many of whom had refused to leave the courtroom, pro-opposition Halk TV said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis trial is a conspiratorial case. It is an attempted coup by Tayyip Erdo\u011fan against the next president and the next government,\u201d \u00d6zel said as the trial began.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors have charged 54-year-old \u0130mamo\u011flu with 142 offences, ranging from graft to embezzlement and espionage, alongside more than 400 other defendants, in an indictment that runs nearly 4,000 pages.<\/p>\n

They accuse him of running a sprawling criminal network over which he exerted influence \u201clike an octopus.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all protests banned within a one-kilometer (0.6-mile) radius of the courthouse, supporters gathered at a distance at a CHP encampment by a mockup of \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s jail cell, an Agence France-Presse correspondent at the scene said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day will come when the tables are turned and the AKP will be held accountable,\u201d they shouted, referring to Erdo\u011fan\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party, waving pictures of \u0130mamo\u011flu and 15 other CHP mayors who are also behind bars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he had not announced his presidential candidacy, he would still be in office as mayor,\u201d said Kadim Ta\u015fbilek, a 58-year-old retiree, who denounced the trial as \u201ca political coup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is political. I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s any corruption,\u201d agreed H\u00fclya \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, a 74-year-old pensioner.<\/p>\n

\u2018Weaponized\u2019 justice system<\/p>\n

The trial has been widely denounced by rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which both condemned the \u201cweaponization\u201d of Turkey\u2019s justice system to remove political opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis prosecution bears the hallmarks of an attempt to intimidate political opponents of the government and silence wider dissent in the country,\u201d said a statement from Dinushika Dissanayake, Amnesty\u2019s deputy director for Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis mass trial is the most extreme example of the disturbing weaponization of Turkey\u2019s justice system, whose independence has now been almost entirely hollowed out.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the trial involving such a large number of defendants, the court authorities had started construction of a new courtroom especially for the trial, but it had not been completed on time, CHP officials said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The court has limited the number of journalists covering the trial to 25, of which five were international media representatives.<\/p>\n

At Monday\u2019s hearing, a summary of the indictment will be read out and the court will decide on the time frame for hearing the case.<\/p>\n

Among those present in court were CHP leader \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel and \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s wife Dilek, who told reporters at the scene their request for the trial to be broadcast live had been ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re nervous and excited before the hearing. I visited him last week and his morale is quite good,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Legal crackdown<\/p>\n

Since the CHP won a resounding victory in the March 2024 local elections against Erdo\u011fan\u2019s AKP, it has faced a sweeping legal crackdown. Fifteen of its mayors are now behind bars.<\/p>\n

Analysts say \u0130mamo\u011flu almost certainly will not be able to run in the next presidential race.<\/p>\n

Even if he were to be cleared of the graft charges, he is facing an even more significant legal obstacle: a lawsuit challenging the validity of his university degree, a constitutional requirement for presidential candidates.<\/p>\n

Should he be barred, political observers expect CHP leader \u00d6zel or Ankara Mayor Mansur Yava\u015f to emerge as the likely candidates for the presidential race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u0130stanbul\u2019s jailed mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu went on trial Monday in a sweeping corruption case critics say is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[20958,2031,425,21043,17279,1181,21044,427,314,430,131,132,155],"class_list":{"0":"post-36277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stockholm","8":"tag-chp-leader-ozgur-ozel","9":"tag-crackdown-on-opposition","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-dinushika-dissanayake","12":"tag-ibb-trial","13":"tag-istanbul-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu","14":"tag-judicial-independence","15":"tag-justice","16":"tag-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan","17":"tag-republican-peoples-party-chp","18":"tag-stockholm","19":"tag-sweden","20":"tag-turkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116200397011027071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36277","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=36277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}