CHP Slams Indictment Against İmamoğlu as Politically Motivated

İmamoğlu, arrested in May amid the ongoing investigation into the Istanbul Municipality, claimed the charges were fabricated to target him and his party.

“The indictment you have written consists of lies that you have strung together by threatening people, holding them hostage, coercing them into making false accusations, and tying them up,” İmamoğlu said on Nov. 12 via X. He urged that the trials be broadcast live on state-run TRT “so everyone can see your lies and slander.”

The nearly 3,900-page indictment describes İmamoğlu as “the founder and leader of the organization,” accusing him of establishing and managing a criminal organization, accepting and giving bribes, fraud against public institutions and rigging bids.

Prosecutors allege that the supposed network “developed like the arms of an octopus.”

CHP leader Özgür Özel said on Nov. 11 the charges represented “a memorandum from the coup plotters to politics.”

“What is happening is a blatant intervention by the judiciary in democratic politics and the results of the upcoming elections,” Özel said. He visited İmamoğlu in prison on Nov. 12.

For his part, CHP spokesperson Deniz Yücel said the language of the indictment, including the “octopus” metaphor, reflected a political narrative rather than legal reasoning.

“This is not a judicial document — it’s a political text targeting the CHP’s institutional identity and legal personality,” Yücel said at a press conference on Nov. 12, noting that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had used the same phrases.

Meanwhile, Ahmet Özer, the dismissed mayor of Istanbul’s Esenyurt district, was released from custody as part of the same probe into alleged bid rigging.