A Turkish prosecutor has demanded more than 2,000 years in prison for Istanbul’s jailed mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, accusing him of leading a vast corruption network that allegedly defrauded the state of billions of liras, according to an indictment unveiled on Tuesday.
Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Akin Gurlek said the nearly 4,000-page document names 402 suspects, including Imamoglu, and charges them with forming a criminal organization, bribery, fraud, money laundering, and bid-rigging.
He said the alleged network caused 160 billion Turkish liras (around $3.8 billion) in losses to the state over 10 years.
The indictment, which includes findings by the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) and what Gurlek described as "digital and video evidence," portrays Imamoglu as the founder and head of the organization. It also accuses several business figures of being coerced into paying bribes through a secret municipal fund.
Turkish media reported that Imamoglu faces 142 separate charges and could serve up to 2,352 years in prison if convicted.
The mayor, detained since March, has rejected all accusations and denounced them as politically driven. His arrest sparked the largest demonstrations in Turkiye in over a decade.
Imamoglu previously received a separate prison term in July for allegedly insulting and threatening the city’s chief prosecutor – a verdict he is appealing.
Additional charges against him include espionage, document forgery, and defamation of public officials. He is also accused of transferring residents’ personal data to obtain foreign campaign funding, which Imamoglu has dismissed as "nonsense."
The government has denied accusations by Imamoglu and his Republican People’s Party (CHP) that the proceedings are politically motivated, insisting that Turkiye’s courts are independent.
The Istanbul municipality and Imamoglu’s lawyers have not commented on the latest indictment, with the trial date to be set once the court accepts the case.
The sweeping indictment against Imamoglu aligns with what Turkish academic and writer Fatih Yasli describes as a broader campaign by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to dismantle the country’s democratic framework.
Yasli argues that Ankara has turned the judiciary into a mechanism of "de-electoralization," or criminalizing opposition forces while extending selective overtures to the Kurdish movement.
Within this context, the case against the Istanbul mayor, the most prominent figure in the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is seen as part of a wider effort to fracture the opposition, reclaim CHP-led municipalities, and entrench Erdogan’s power through judicial and administrative control rather than through elections.
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