Turkey sentences 5 opposition mayors in cases critics slam as politically motivated

ISTANBUL (AP) — A Turkish court on Monday convicted five mayors of municipalities run by the country's main opposition party on corruption charges in a trial that critics have denounced as politically motivated.

The case before an Istanbul court included allegations of bribery, bid-rigging and fraud in relation to municipal contracts. Critics of the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan say the trial targeted the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and that the prosecution relied on secret witnesses and defendants implicating other defendants in return for lighter punishment.

The Turkish government insists the country's judiciary is independent and free from political influence.

The case focused on allegations that companies controlled by businessman Aziz Ihsan Aktas secured municipal tenders through bribery, bid-rigging and fraud. The opposition, meanwhile, has said that municipalities under Erdogan’s party control that did business with Aktas were not as thoroughly investigated.

Of the five convicted, the mayor of Istanbul's Besiktas district, Riza Akpolat, received the heftiest sentence of 23 years and three months for accepting bribes, money laundering and bid-rigging.

The sentences of the four other mayors — who like Akpolat were removed from their posts following their arrests — ranged between five and eight years.

The seven-month trial in a courthouse next to Silivri Prison, west of Istanbul, included 200 defendants. Some of them were also sentenced while others were acquitted, though details of their cases were not immediately clear.

Aktas was arrested in Istanbul in January last year, after which authorities launched investigations into other Istanbul districts controlled by the Republican People’s Party, or CHP. The southern Turkish municipalities of Adana and Adiyaman, both run by CHP, were also investigated.

Aktas initially denied the charges but later testified against co-defendants under Turkey’s “effective repentance” law, alleging he had provided mayors and other officials with cash, cars and other bribes to get municipal contracts.

Aktas was separately tried and sentenced to two years and eight months for bid-rigging but was acquitted of bribery charges.

Most of the defendants denied knowing Aktas and accused him of giving false evidence. They also said that tenders had been allocated under long-standing processes and previous audits had uncovered no irregularities.

Another controversial aspect of the trial was the use of secret witnesses by the prosecution, many of whom admitted their evidence was based on hearsay.

Akpolat, the mayor of Besiktas, told the court that investigators offered to drop the charges if he gave evidence in a separate investigation into the CHP’s 2023 congress.

That investigation led to a court ordering the removal of the CHP’s top echelon in May on the grounds of voting irregularities during leadership elections. Many CHP members followed deposed leader Ozgur Ozel to the New Party, which is now the largest opposition group in parliament.

The CHP won several major cities in the 2019 local elections, including Istanbul and Ankara, the country's capital. Further wins followed in the 2024 municipal polls but since then, an array of court cases have been brought against the opposition.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the metropolitan mayor of Istanbul and the opposition's favored challenger to Erdogan in the next presidential election, has been behind bars since March last year.

He faces several legal cases, with the main one alleging corruption within the Istanbul municipality — claims that echo those in the Aktas case. If convicted, he could be sentenced to more than 2,300 years in total.