{"id":264822,"date":"2025-03-23T08:02:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T08:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/23\/turkish-president-erdogans-main-rival-ekrem-imamoglu-formally-arrested-and-jailed-pending-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-03-23T08:02:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T08:02:15","slug":"turkish-president-erdogans-main-rival-ekrem-imamoglu-formally-arrested-and-jailed-pending-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/23\/turkish-president-erdogans-main-rival-ekrem-imamoglu-formally-arrested-and-jailed-pending-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish president Erdogan’s main rival Ekrem Imamoglu formally arrested and jailed pending trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Turkish<\/div>


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The mayor of Istanbul and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival has been formally arrested and jailed pending trial over corruption charges.<\/p>\n

Ekrem Imamoglu was originally detained on Sunday – sparking widespread protests <\/strong><\/a>across Turkey which have since intensified.<\/p>\n

Mr Imamoglu, a popular opposition figure with the Republican People’s Party, was also detained over allegations of links to terror organisations.<\/p>\n

For a fourth night, demonstrators clashed with police as the 54-year-old faced further questioning. He denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

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\n Protestors clash with riot police. Pic: AP
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Many view his detention on Wednesday<\/strong><\/a> as a political move to remove him from the 2028 presidential race – with the last having taken place in 2023.<\/p>\n

However, government officials reject accusations that legal actions against opposition figures are politically motivated and insist that Turkey’s<\/a><\/strong> courts operate independently.<\/p>\n

Police questioned Mr Imamoglu for around five hours on Saturday as part of a terror investigation into allegations of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, the Cumhuriyet newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

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\n \"Demonstrators\n <\/div>
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\n Demonstrations have taken place four days in a role following the initial detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. Pic: Reuters,
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A day earlier he was questioned for four hours over the corruption accusations.<\/p>\n

Around 90 other people were also questioned by prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Dozens are prominent figures and include two district mayors.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Saturday, Mr Erdogan said the government would not tolerate street protests and accused the opposition party of links to corruption and extremist organisations.<\/p>\n

“The days of going out into the streets, taking left-wing organisations, extremists, and vandals with you… are now behind us,” he said.<\/p>\n

Saturday marked the fourth night of largely peaceful demonstrations.<\/p>\n

However, a group of protesters, trying to break through barricades to reach Istanbul’s main square, threw flares, stones and other objects at police who responded with pepper spray.<\/p>\n

Police used water cannons and tear gas on demonstrators in the capital, Ankara.<\/p>\n

Mr Imamoglu is expected to be nominated as the Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in a primary on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The party’s leader, Ozgur Ozel, said that the primary, in which around 1.5 million delegates can vote, will go ahead as planned.<\/p>\n

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Please refresh the page for the fullest version.<\/em><\/p>\n

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app<\/strong><\/a>. <\/em>You can also <\/em>follow us on WhatsApp<\/strong><\/em><\/a> and subscribe to our <\/em>YouTube channel<\/strong><\/em><\/a> to keep up with the latest news.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mayor of Istanbul and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival has been formally arrested and jailed pending trial over corruption charges. Ekrem Imamoglu was originally detained on Sunday – sparking widespread protests across Turkey which have since intensified. Mr Imamoglu, a popular opposition figure with the Republican People’s Party, was also detained over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/03\/768x432\/skynews-istanbul-imamoglu-protests_6864549.jpg?20250322222601","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3873,201841,189152,58647,201840,4267,7254,9002,2627,1292,6230,18526],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264824,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264822\/revisions\/264824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}