ISTANBUL (Medyascope) – Yesterday (August 24), a Turkish court announced a decision in a long-running case targeting the opposition-run Beşiktaş district in central Istanbul.
By Leo Kendrick • Medyascope
Beşiktaş district mayor Rıza Akpolat, originally arrested in January 2025, was sentenced to over 20 years in prison. Akpolat was accused of cooperating with crime boss Aziz İhsan Aktaş in order to secure lucrative government tenders for his associates.
Aktaş was acquitted of ‘founding a criminal organization’ and ‘bribery’, while being found guilty of ‘interfering in the awarding of tenders’. The latter charge carries a two year, eight month prison sentence. It is worth noting that Aktaş was acquitted on the former two charges despite the crime boss’ admission of cooperating with mayors to secure tender deals. The opposition mayors implicated have denied collusion with Aktaş.
Akpolat was sentenced to a total of nearly 22 years in prison on charges including ‘interfering in the awarding of tenders’, ‘laundering funds originating from organized crime’.
Other opposition officials implicated in the case were Oya Tekin, mayor of Adana’s Seyhan district, Utku Caner Çaykara, mayor of Istanbul’s Avcılar district, and Adana municipality mayor Zeydan Karalar, who all received prison sentences ranging from 5-8 years.
Wave of arrests targeting opposition officials
Akpolat’s arrest in early 2025 was among the first in a sweeping crackdown of opposition officials in Turkey following major gains by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 2024’s local elections, which saw President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lose virtually all of Turkey’s major cities to the CHP.
The crackdown climaxed with the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in March 2025, and has continued with routine arrests of opposition politicians in the time since. In May 2026, a Turkish court removed the leadership of the CHP, a move widely seen as a politically motivated attempt to handicap the country’s largest opposition party. Since this removal, a majority of CHP parliamentarians have moved to the Yeni Party, a new party founded by ousted CHP chairman Özgür Özel.
Mayor sentenced to 22 years in corruption case | written/translated by Leo Kendrick | Edited by Meydascope English Newsroom
