Istanbul mayor and hundreds of officials appear at 87th corruption hearing

At the 87th hearing of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality corruption case, suspended mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and 435 additional defendants faced the court. The indictment, submitted on 11 November 2025 and spanning 3,809 pages, designates Imamoglu as the alleged head of a criminal organization and enumerates charges such as bribery, money laundering, fraud, illegal data collection, evidence tampering, extortion, bid-rigging, environmental violations and breaches of tax, forestry and mining statutes.

Prosecutors have requested a prison sentence ranging from 828 years, two months to 2,352 years for Imamoglu across 142 alleged offenses. The court previously issued arrest warrants for five individuals who failed to appear, leading to the detention of Sinan Bolak at Istanbul Airport after an arrest order was issued.