The prosecutor in Turkey’s biggest city has accused popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of 142 corruption offences that command jail terms ranging from 828 to 2,352 years.
Imamoglu, considered the main political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been in pre-trial custody since March on suspicion of corruption.
The Istanbul mayor and his opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deny any wrongdoing and accuse the president and his allies of launching a crackdown in response to Erdogan’s decline in popularity.
However, the city’s chief prosecutor has targeted not just Imamoglu but 401 others, with allegations of running a criminal corruption network with the mayor as its “founder and leader”.
