Detained Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu has denied “terrorism” costs introduced towards him, in keeping with a court docket doc seen by the Reuters information company
“I see at present throughout my interrogation that I and my colleagues are confronted with unimaginable accusations and slanders,” Imamoglu mentioned Saturday in his defence throughout a listening to, the doc confirmed.
In a while Saturday, Imamoglu arrived on the Caglayan courthouse, the place he was to be questioned by prosecutors, a spokesman for metropolis corridor mentioned. Imamoglu will seem in court docket on Sunday as a choose is anticipated to resolve whether or not to jail or launch him.
The mayor, a key opposition determine and potential challenger to longtime President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was detained on Wednesday by the federal government for alleged corruption and “terrorism”.
His detention got here 4 days earlier than his Republican Folks’s Occasion (CHP) deliberate to call him as its 2028 presidential candidate.
Erdogan on Saturday accused the CHP’s management of turning the get together “into an equipment to absolve a handful of municipal robbers who’ve turn out to be blinded by cash.”
He additionally accused it of “doing all the pieces to disturb the general public peace, to polarize the nation.”
Courtroom look
Reporting from Ankara, Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker mentioned Imamoglu goes to be moved from police custody to judicial custody on Saturday.
“We perceive he may have a well being test together with 100 or so others who’re charged too, after which he will likely be transferred to the courthouse. So he will likely be questioned by a prosecutor later tonight,” she mentioned.
“Then tomorrow morning, he seems earlier than a choose, and the choose will make a ruling on whether or not … he’s launched with out cost, launched pending trial or detained pending trial,” she added.
‘Feeling of being trapped’
Imamoglu’s arrest has sparked a wave of protests which have unfold inside 48 hours to greater than two-thirds of Turkiye’s 81 provinces, even together with strongholds of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Growth Occasion, such because the central space of Konya and Trabzon and Rize on the Black Sea.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc informed reporters this week that the arrests had nothing to do with the federal government. “Linking investigations and circumstances initiated by the judiciary to our President is, at finest, presumptuous and inappropriate,” he mentioned.
Erdogan’s communications directorate has additionally mentioned the presidency would proceed to defend him towards what it known as an “irrational smear marketing campaign”.
Regardless of a ban on protests and a heavy police presence, big crowds of protesters have taken to the streets.
Turkiye noticed a fourth straight night time of protests on Saturday.
“The sensation of being trapped – economically, socially, politically and even culturally – was already widespread,” Kemal Can, a journalist and writer of quite a few books on Turkish society, informed the AFP information company.
However Erdogan does nonetheless retain help in lots of components of the nation that trusts the federal government as a result of nation’s divisive historical past and present polarized surroundings.
Imamoglu’s arrest, Can mentioned, had sparked a robust response, “particularly amongst younger folks fearful about their future in a rustic the place freedoms are more and more restricted. It’s a response that goes properly past Imamoglu.”
Imamoglu counseled the protests and mentioned in a put up on X on Saturday that they have been aimed toward defending “democracy” as an “inspiration” to the world.
Protest crackdown
Turkish police have cracked down on protesters.
Officers mentioned 343 folks have been arrested within the demonstrations to this point, which have seen a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals protest in Turkiye’s largest cities in an enormous present of defiance.
On Saturday, detention warrants have been issued for 94 suspects accused of posting “provocative” calls to protest and create public “panic”, the Turkish information company Anadolu quoted the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s workplace as saying.
Police carried out simultaneous raids, detaining 56 of the suspects, and are looking for the 38 others, Anadolu reported, including that authorities have additionally seized unlawful medicine throughout searches of the suspects’ houses.
The investigation towards İmamoglu is a part of a sweeping probe involving 106 suspects over corruption and “terror” allegations.