İstanbul’s popular Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has recently faced multiple investigations, testified to prosecutors as part of a probe into allegations that he falsely obtained his university degree, the Anka news agency reported.
İmamoğlu spent an hour at the İstanbul Courthouse on Tuesday morning where he responded to the accusations against him about “the falsification of an official document.”
According to Turkish media reports, he denied the accusations in his testimony and said the investigation lacks a legal basis and is politically motivated.
The investigation into İmamoğlu, launched a day after he submitted his candidacy for the presidency for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), is based on a report drafted by the Higher Education Board (YÖK).
According to the YÖK report, İmamoğlu’s transfer from Girne American University in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) to İstanbul University in 1990 included irregularities.
İmamoğlu has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s in human resource management from İstanbul University.
Under Turkey’s constitution, presidential candidates must have a degree from an institution of higher learning. İmamoğlu is seen as the strongest political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
İmamoğlu also told prosecutors in his testimony that the people who drafted the YÖK report should have been testifying to the prosecutors instead of him.
His lawyers have challenged the YÖK report’s legality and filed a complaint against the five people involved in drafting it.
The mayor claims that his university transfer was in line with the regulations in force at the time.
İmamoğlu, who first took over the governance of Turkey’s largest city from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2019 and was re-elected last year, is currently the subject of five other investigations, two of which were opened in January.
Regularly targeted by Erdoğan, who also served as İstanbul mayor, İmamoğlu was sentenced in December 2022 to nearly three years in prison and a political ban for “insulting” members of Turkey’s High Electoral Board. He has appealed the ruling.
A vocal critic of Erdoğan, İmamoğlu in January denounced what he called judicial “harassment” after being questioned by an İstanbul court in another investigation related to his criticism of the city’s public prosecutor.