Two land registry directors in Çorum and Afyonkarahisar and a land registry official in the southern province of Antalya have been arrested as part of an expanding investigation into the alleged unauthorized access of Justice Minister Akın Gürlek’s property records, the DHA news agency reported.
M.D., head of the land registry office in the Çobanlar district of Afyonkarahisar, and V.S., head of the office in the Boğazkale district of Çorum, were detained on Tuesday and later arrested on Wednesday on charges of unlawfully obtaining personal data and abuse of office.
A technician identified as D.A., who worked at the land registry office in the Kaş district of Antalya, had been arrested earlier in the same investigation.
Their arrests came after the Directorate General of Land Registry and Cadastre suspended the three employees and launched an administrative investigation into them on Tuesday.
In his statement V.S. admitted to conducting the query but said he did not share the data with anyone.
D.A. told investigators that he accessed Gürlek’s records at the request of a woman he met on social media. “A person named Ayşegül, whom I met on social media and became friends with, tricked me during a conversation into querying the land registry records of Justice Minister Akın Gürlek,” he said.
A woman identified as Ayşegül E.K. was subsequently detained in Antalya on Wednesday after it was determined that she had allegedly directed D.A. to obtain and send the records.
She was located in central Antalya and taken into custody on the orders of the Kaş Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The investigation was launched after the queries made through the land registry system were found not to be part of routine procedures and to potentially involve unauthorized access to personal data.
The developments follow a public dispute over Gürlek’s assets after main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel disclosed details of the minister’s property holdings at a press conference.
Özel said Gürlek owned multiple properties and that the combined estimated value of his current and previously sold real estate totaled about 452 million Turkish lira ($10 million).
He argued that such wealth would be difficult to accumulate on the salary of a prosecutor and senior judge over the course of Gürlek’s career.
Gürlek denied the accusation in a post on X, calling it an effort at public disinformation. He said he has worked in state service for more than 20 years and that he and his wife, also a judge, regularly submit financial disclosure statements to the proper authorities as required by law.
Gürlek was one of the most controversial judicial figures in Turkey before he joined President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s cabinet as justice minister in February. As İstanbul’s chief public prosecutor, he oversaw a wide-ranging legal campaign against CHP-run municipalities, including the major corruption case against jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s strongest political rival.
His move into the justice ministry drew fierce opposition criticism and protests in parliament.
The real estate allegations are not the first time Özel has accused Gürlek of holding positions or assets inconsistent with the role of a top prosecutor.
In November Özel said Gürlek had remained on the board of a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of the state-run Eti Maden mining company after becoming İstanbul’s chief public prosecutor, a claim Gürlek denied, though a Luxembourg corporate filing published at the time appeared to support the opposition leader’s timeline.