Turkish prosecutors order detention of 36 in bribery probe
Prosecutors sought 36 detentions in a bribery and tender-rigging probe that reached Ankara’s Cankaya, where 27 suspects were already in custody.
Turkish prosecutors ordered the detention of 36 people in a bribery and tender-rigging investigation that included Huseyin Can Guner, the Republican People’s Party mayor of Ankara’s Cankaya district. Authorities had already detained 27 of the suspects while searches continued for the rest, deepening a case that has quickly become part of Turkey’s wider fight over whether anti-corruption enforcement is being applied evenly or used to pressure opposition-run municipalities.
Guner said on X that he had told authorities where he was and had left a spare key so officers could search his home while he was on the way to Ankara. He also said his administration had run the district responsibly and had not done anything to embarrass its supporters. His case places a prominent opposition mayor at the center of an inquiry that reaches into one of the country’s most politically charged local administrations.
Cankaya carries unusual weight in Ankara. The district has 947,330 residents, 124 neighborhoods and a daytime population that exceeds 3 million, according to Çankaya Municipality, which says government buildings, universities and workplaces draw in a far larger daily crowd than the resident count suggests. Any criminal probe there carries immediate administrative and political consequences, especially if it disrupts municipal operations or broadens to other officials and contracts.
The detention order also fit into a longer pattern of pressure on CHP-run municipalities. In 2025, hundreds of CHP members and municipal workers, including 14 mayors, were detained or jailed in corruption, insult and terrorism-related cases. More than 400 CHP mayors gathered in Ankara on July 10 to respond to the growing wave of probes. The CHP says those investigations are politically motivated, while the government says the judiciary is independent.
Guner’s party biography says he was born in Ankara in 1993, graduated from Ankara University Law Faculty in 2015 and joined the CHP in 2012. He later worked in the party’s youth and legal organizations before becoming mayor of Cankaya, a path that now places him inside one of the sharpest legal and political confrontations facing Turkey’s opposition.
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