Jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a leading opposition figure and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political rival, is due to present his defense in court on Wednesday at the latest hearing in his corruption trial.
İmamoğlu has been in pretrial detention since March 2025. He is being tried with 414 co-defendants, 59 of whom are also in detention, in proceedings held at a courtroom inside Marmara Prison in Silivri, west of İstanbul.
Last week İmamoğlu was removed from the courtroom after a heated exchange with the presiding judge over the order and schedule of defense statements.
On Tuesday the judge announced that İmamoğlu would be called to present his defense on Wednesday, according to BirGün, a newspaper close to the opposition.
The judge said İmamoğlu “could again be removed if he disrupts the proper conduct of the hearing.”
İmamoğlu was jailed on the day he was nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
Ousted CHP leader Özgür Özel is expected to attend the hearing along with other opposition figures and supporters.
Özel was removed from the party leadership after a court annulled the CHP’s 2023 congress, ruling that alleged irregularities in the leadership vote invalidated his election and reinstating former chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
In a statement published on X, İmamoğlu denounced what he described as a “very serious violation of [his] rights and the height of injustice.”
“The court is restricting and ignoring the arguments presented in their defense by the people most heavily targeted by the indictment and by their lawyers,” he said.
“This proves that the entire İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality case has collapsed and is turning into a series of extrajudicial decisions,” he added.
İmamoğlu, who was re-elected in March 2024 as mayor of Turkey’s largest city, denies leading what prosecutors describe as a vast criminal network.
He faces 142 charges and could be sentenced to up to 2,430 years in prison if convicted.
© Agence France-Presse