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”.After an eight-month inquiry, prosecutor Akin Gürlek said the suspects, of whom 105 were in detention, had formed an enormous criminal organisation that had been engaged in taking and receiving bribes as well as money laundering.The cost in losses to the Turkish state amounted to 160bn lira (£2,9bn; $3.8bn), he said.Imamoglu, who is the secular CHP’s candidate for presidential elections in 2028, has been cited on 12 counts of bribery, seven counts of money laundering from criminal proceeds and a further seven counts of fraud against public institutions and organisations.Anadolu news agency estimated the charges would carry a prison sentence of 2,430 years.The mayor’s detention in March triggered widespread protests, hundreds of arrests and a police crackdown. Ever since, he has been held in Marmara prison on the outskirts of Istanbul. Apart from the corruption case, prosecutors have accused him of a raft of other offences including espionage and forging his university diploma, a qualification that has since been annulled.Turkish authorities deny the mayor’s allegation that the judiciary is being used as a political tool. However, without a university diploma he cannot stand for the presidency in 2028.As the p …
