16.10.2026 13:40
On the 100th day of the İBB case, moving on to the third day of his defense, Ekrem İmamoğlu claimed that the cost of 33 files from the AK Party era was 2.5 billion dollars. İmamoğlu said that a plot of land in a military area in Başakşehir, bought for 13.5 million dollars, was worth 2 million dollars five years later, and that in KİPTAŞ’s land purchase in Bahçeşehir, a company made a profit of 81 million lira in 4 days.
News: Esra TOKAT - Zuhal ÇİLOĞLAN(ISTANBUL) -
Presidential candidate and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, in his defense in the IMM case, said, “The real value of the land bought by the AK Party IMM administration for $13.5 million turns out to be $2 million, and that is 5 years later.” Saying that the public loss due to the land in Başakşehir was $11.5 million, İmamoğlu also said regarding KİPTAŞ’s land purchase in Bahçeşehir, “The company that purchased it, the company that was made to purchase it, makes a profit of exactly 81 million lira in 2016 money just 4 days later.”
The 100th day of the IMM Trial, with 436 defendants, 53 of whom are detained, including Ekrem İmamoğlu, is being held by the Istanbul 33rd Heavy Penal Court at the Marmara Closed Prison compound in Silivri. Ekrem İmamoğlu is continuing his defense on the third day as well.
Before the hearing began, a relative of a complainant from the audience section, Adnan Yücel, read the section of his poem titled “Until the Earth Becomes the Face of Love”: “Palaces and sultanates collapse, blood falls silent one day, oppression ends; violets bloom over us, lilacs smile too. From these days, those who go to a tomorrow remain, and those who resist for tomorrows.” After the poem, the audience chanted the slogans “The people’s hope is İmamoğlu,” “President İmamoğlu,” “Funders in, mayors out,” and “Free press, free Turkey.” As New Party Chairman Özgür Özel came to the hall to follow the hearing, he was greeted with the slogan “Özgür Özel is our honor.”
When Ekrem İmamoğlu came to the hall for his defense, the slogan “President İmamoğlu” was also chanted.
Offering condolences for the people who lost their lives due to ongoing rainfall in Istanbul and nearby provinces, İmamoğlu said, “We learned with limited means that the number of deaths has increased because there is a problem: we cannot watch television broadcasts. Every disaster actually reminds us of our responsibility; every disaster should remind us that every institution of the state, on behalf of the nation, must work together, produce together, and bear the responsibility of serving its people in a synchronized manner. In other words, the structure of the state institution, the state construct, should be separate; government, politics, and parties should position themselves in different areas and, when they take office within that state construct, be able to transform into a whole.”
Also offering condolences for Dündar Ziya Gültekin, elected Acting Mayor of Üsküdar from the AK Party, İmamoğlu touched on the Union of Turkish Municipalities (TBB) elections. İmamoğlu said:
“TBB is actually a very concrete form of the defense here and of our presence here. That is, unfortunately, the President of the Union of Turkish Municipalities has been elected for the 4th time since 2024, that is, within 1.5 years. The manifestation of our presence here, of the effort to design politics through the judiciary, of the intervention to suppress the opposition through the judiciary, even to exclude it from the state, of the bad struggle, of the bad mind, caused another Union of Turkish Municipalities election yesterday.
As you know, after the 2024 elections, our people also know that we, who rightfully became Turkey’s first party and won many municipalities, and our local government colleagues, had an election stance by inviting all parties with an inclusive model. Only the People’s Alliance said, ‘We will not participate, we will field a rival.’ We prepared an administration by including all parties other than that in our administration, and in this way we announced our future, and I was elected President of the Union of Turkish Municipalities.
Then, after the March 19 coup, our esteemed mayor Zeydan Karalar was elected; unfortunately, an operation was also carried out against him. We were in prison here together; he was freed, was released, could not return to his post. Instead, our mayor Vahap Seçer, our esteemed friend, was elected, the Mayor of Mersin Metropolitan Municipality. Unfortunately, last week, again with the same method, same attitude, same stance, with an operation at dawn or in the dark, he too was sidelined, and for the 4th time, our Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor, our valuable friend Ayşe Ünlüce, was again elected President of the Union of Turkish Municipalities yesterday.
In fact, the description of this is as follows: The government in Turkey says, ‘I will do everything to remove you from your post through the judiciary.’ The opposition in Turkey also says, ‘I will resist to the end in the name of democracy and national will.’ In other words, there is a judicial attack, and against it there is a great solidarity and resistance of the national will. The result in yesterday’s Union of Turkish Municipalities election is the response to this resistance. We must read it this way. Therefore, the opposition in Turkey, oppositional thought, opposition institutions, organizations, and civil society standing together is no longer a road map with political motives. It is the struggle to protect and re-establish the republic and democracy in Turkey. It is the struggle to rebuild justice. In that respect, it is vital. In this context, I congratulate Ms. Ayşe once again. ”
NOT A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE WAS SHOWN
İmamoğlu then touched on the files prepared by IMM inspectors regarding the AK Party period. İmamoğlu, “I would like to move on to the section I will now explain. I especially ask our esteemed press, the pro-government press, to listen carefully. In the AK Party period, it is always said; allegations are made about us and it is said that this happened, that happened. What is there? There is a statement. What is there? There are fabricated expert reports. I will also go into details about them. There is no evidence. I repeat, 7 months have passed. 7 months have passed and we are here. After 7 months, on this screen or the screen in the previous courtroom we were in, not a single piece of evidence, not a single audio recording, not a single concrete document was shown to us by the prosecution in any way. nor did the confessors who came here, the defendant-confessors, share a single piece of evidence, a single concrete piece of information or document with us. Only statements, only gossip,” he said.
İmamoğlu also said regarding the investigations conducted based on documents and information obtained by institutions after he was elected Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality: “But right after I was elected Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, as our friends gained control of the institutions, they entered into concrete investigations based on the documents they obtained and certain information.”
THE PRICE OF 33 FILES IS $2.5 BILLION
Providing information about the files identified in the IMM regarding the period before him during the AK Party period, İmamoğlu spoke as follows:
“Now, during the AK Party period, that is, in the period immediately before my election, all the files you see here are files that our inspection board, our teams conducting audits and examinations, concretely identified with documentation and for which the necessary action was taken. 33 of them are on the list. Why did we separate these 33? Because these 33 files, unfortunately, after we carried out the necessary procedures and announced some of them, look, this has never happened in the history of the Republic of Turkey. The Minister of Interior at that time requested these files from us, took them, seized them, and said, ‘I will investigate these.’ They prevented our investigation and our filing the necessary complaints on the legal side.
64 of them are those about which we filed criminal complaints with the prosecutor's office. 146 are files through which we made and reported complaints to various institutions and organizations, to various institutions and organizations. Look, the cost of only 33 files, precisely 33 files, is 2.5 billion dollars. The exchange rate calculations here may be wrong because these tables were some figures we prepared three-four months ago regarding my unpublished book. Unfortunately, in Turkey the exchange rate also changes, the stock market crashes, many things happen. That is, the figure of 115 billion there may perhaps today have become 125 billion.
Now, despite the destruction and concealment of evidence, here I am sharing with you this table of the corruption for which we have found concrete evidence, not gossip. Let me state again, the Ministry of Interior, contrary to all its conventions, in a way never seen before, seized the files examined by our İBB inspectors. This is not something unprecedented in history, I underline again.
The arbitrary seizure by the ministry of files proving 2.5 billion dollars of corruption and their being swept under the rug, and, based on fabricated expert reports or, unfortunately, by prosecutors allowing a large part of them to lapse under the statute of limitations, the issuing of decisions of no grounds for prosecution one after another like this, is institutional and moral decay, corruption, the pinnacle of arbitrariness.
İmamoğlu, stating that the transactions in question were carried out within the last 3-3.5 years, said, "As I have also stated, they continue to keep me and my companions in custody for trial without any evidence."
13.5 MILLION DOLLAR PLOT TURNED OUT TO BE 2 MILLION DOLLARS AFTER 5 YEARS
İmamoğlu, giving examples of the real estate purchases that he stated were carried out by İBB during the AK Party period, said, "Our nation definitely sees this hypocrisy, and I will concretely show it to you along with a few points."
İmamoğlu, stating that he would not recount all 33 files and would convey 3 or 5 of them, also said regarding the purchase of a property in Başakşehir, "On October 24, 2016, in Başakşehir, a private property of a military-area nature. At the exchange rate of that day, it is purchased and expropriated by İBB for a price equivalent to 13.5 million dollars. Look, inside the military area."
İmamoğlu said that the inspectors' report stated that the property in question was purchased through direct procurement, that the representative of the property owners was the former AK Party Maltepe District Chairman, and that the property price was sent directly to this person's account. Conveying that the property was designated in the zoning plans as a "military strategic area," İmamoğlu stated that for this reason it was not possible for it to be used in any service of the Metropolitan Municipality. İmamoğlu said, "In other words, I have been the mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality for 7 years. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality does not have a military unit. That is, it has no such power, no such force, no such responsibility. A place that appears to be a military strategic area is being expropriated."
İmamoğlu, stating that in 2021 the inspectors had a real estate appraisal report prepared for the property, continued as follows:
"In 2021, look, 2021, how many years have passed? 2016, 2021, 5 years have passed. The inspector colleagues have a real estate appraisal report prepared here. Because it is in a military area, they determine its current value 5 years later as 13 million 350 thousand liras. That makes 2 million dollars at the exchange rate of that day, at the 2021 exchange rate, 2 million dollars. In summary, it turns out that the real value of the land purchased by the İBB AK Party administration for 13.5 million dollars was 2 million dollars, and that after 5 years. "
İmamoğlu stated that in this transaction the public loss was 11.5 million dollars and, noting that the property in question was of no use to İBB for anything, used the expressions, "Strategic military area. Look, this is a striking example, 13.5 million dollars. Theft was literally committed from the public treasury. Theft was committed. There is no other way to describe it."
81 MILLION LIRA PROFIT IN 4 DAYS
İmamoğlu then cited as an example the land purchase made by KİPTAŞ in Bahçeşehir. Saying, "Here, 27 million dollars was transferred into someone's pocket. And quite blatantly, in 4 days, look, in 4 days," İmamoğlu said that during the AK Party period KİPTAŞ purchased a plot of land in Bahçeşehir for 300 million liras. İmamoğlu stated that in the report of the Metropolitan Municipality inspectors it was determined that KİPTAŞ purchased the land at a figure far above its fair value. İmamoğlu said that it was demonstrated that the loss as of January 11, 2016, the date the payment was made, was approximately 50 million dollars.
Stating that the land was sold on January 7, 2016 for 49.5 million liras to another company that would enter into a relationship with KİPTAŞ, İmamoğlu noted that the same company sold the land only 4 days later, on January 11, 2016, to KİPTAŞ for 130 million liras. İmamoğlu used the expression, "The company that bought it, the company made to buy it, only 4 days later, in 2016 money, makes a profit of exactly 81 million liras. At that day's current exchange rate, 27 million dollars. Look, 27 million dollars. So a company buys the land, and only 4 days later sells the land for nearly three times as much. And to whom does it sell it? To İBB. KİPTAŞ is very strong, knows real estate, knows the region, knows the land. This clever person, these cunning people, quite openly rip off KİPTAŞ, and pocket the 27 million dollars."
.