Human Rights Watch: İmamoğlu to face mass corruption trial that could bar 2028 bid

Human Rights Watch said Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul’s mayor and a leading opposition figure, will stand trial on March 9, 2026, as the central defendant in a mass corruption prosecution that could prevent him from running in the 2028 presidential election. The charges, laid out in a November 2025 indictment, accuse İmamoğlu of leading a criminal organisation behind 142 alleged criminal acts across 18 offence types, including tender rigging, bribery, extortion and money laundering.

Prosecutors, led by Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Akın Gürlek, have framed the case as one of extraordinary scale. Investigators say the alleged scheme produced losses to the state of 160 billion Turkish lira, roughly $3.8 billion, and have calculated theoretical aggregate jail terms for the corruption counts at between 828 and 2,352 years. Prosecutorial filings cited in court list counts tied to tenders, with Human Rights Watch noting 70 counts linked specifically to rigged contracts. Prosecutors have also targeted hundreds of municipal staff: Human Rights Watch records most of 407 defendants as current or former employees of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, while court filings and investigators have alternatively cited a figure of 401 co-defendants, about 105 of whom were in detention at one stage.

The case against İmamoğlu is not limited to corruption allegations. He was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention on March 19, 2025, in the Istanbul organised crime and corruption probe, and a separate indictment over an alleged forged university diploma was filed on July 4, 2025. Prosecutors have opened an espionage investigation alleging transfer of residents’ data to secure foreign funding, an allegation İmamoğlu dismissed when he told Turks to, "forget this espionage nonsense." A court document obtained by AFP shows İmamoğlu was given a 20-month prison sentence for insulting and threatening the city’s public prosecutor; that sentence fell short of the two-year threshold that would have triggered an automatic ban from public office.

Human Rights Watch has described the prosecution as politically motivated, calling the March 9 trial the centerpiece of a "politically motivated mass corruption prosecution." Opposition leaders have echoed that assessment. CHP leader Özgür Özel asked rhetorically about the proliferation of charges: "Could he have committed electoral fraud, had a fake diploma, been a thief, a terrorist and a spy at the same time?" The Turkish government and prosecutors reject allegations of political targeting and maintain that the judiciary is independent.

The trial’s implications extend beyond politics. A prosecution of this size compounds perceived political risk in Turkey, a factor that investors watch closely. High-profile legal action against a popular mayor and potential presidential candidate risks renewed volatility in the lira and could raise borrowing costs if markets interpret the case as evidence of increasing state intervention in politics. For voters, the trial could decide whether a two-term Istanbul mayor who won in 2019 and was re-elected in 2024 remains a viable national contender.

The proceedings will therefore be measured not only for their legal merit but for their effect on Turkey’s democratic institutions and economic confidence. The court calendar and the full November 2025 indictment will be key to verifying the counts, the evidence and the number of co-defendants as the trial proceeds.