Turkish prosecutors on Tuesday charged Istanbul’s jailed mayor Ekrem Imamoglu with 142 offences in a massive legal case that could carry a penalty of more than 2,000 years in jail, court documents showed.
Imamoglu is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival and seen as the only politician capable of beating him at the ballot box, with his arrest in March sparking Turkey’s worst bout of street unrest since 2013.
The nearly 4,000-page indictment charged the popular opposition mayor with a long string of offences, including running a criminal organisation, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, extortion and tender rigging.
State news agency Anadolu said the charges would carry a prison sentence of up to 2,430 years.
The head of Turkey’s main opposition CHP lashed out at the indictment as a clear case of “judicial interference” aimed at blocking Imamoglu from running as their candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
“This case is not legal, it is entirely political. Its purpose is to stop the CHP, which came first in the last (local) elections, and to block its presidential candidate,” Ozgur Ozel wrote on X.
The indictment was filed on Tuesday, with a court date to be set later.
Mayor of Turkey’s largest and richest city until his arrest, Imamoglu is facing a slew of allegations — including espionage and faking his university degree — which could see him banned from running in the 2028 presidential race.
According to the indictment, which names 402 suspects, Imamoglu allegedly headed a sprawling crime network over which he exerted his influence “like an octopus”.
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