A Turkish court on Wednesday ordered the seizure of a construction company owned by İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu following his detention, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
The court based its decision on a request from the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is leading the investigation into İmamoğlu and 105 others.
Prosecutors issued detention warrants for the 106 people, including İmamoğlu, 87 of whom have been detained so far, on corruption and terrorism allegations.
The seized company is İmamoğlu İnşaat, owned by the İmamoğlu family. Mayor İmamoğlu is among its partners.
A statement from the prosecutor’s office said the company was seized based on findings of the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), without elaborating.
The company’s paid-in capital is estimated to be TL 135 million ($3.5 million).
İmamoğlu, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political rival, His detention came just days before the party was expected to name him as its candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
Thousands of people in İstanbul and Ankara protested İmamoğlu’s detention on Wednesday, calling on Erdoğan to resign and accusing him of trying to eliminate his biggest rival through the use of the judiciary.
Turkey has grown accustomed to the seizure of companies and large holdings in the aftermath of a failed coup in July 2016, when the government launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
Many businessmen with ties to the faith-based Gülen movement were arrested and their companies seized on charges that they were financing terrorism.
The government accuses the movement, inspired by the teachings of the late Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, of orchestrating the coup attempt and designates it as a terrorist organization. The movement strongly denies any involvement in the coup attempt or terrorist activities.
A report released in 2023 by the Brussels-based instituDE and titled “Persecutory Confiscation Amounting to Crimes Against Humanity: Case of the Gülen Group” exposed the vast scale of property confiscations in Turkey targeting the movement, with an estimated value of $50 billion and affecting over 1.5 million people in what the authors call systematic and widespread violations of domestic and international law that amount to “crimes against humanity.”