Secret wave in IMM investigation! Another person arrested

It has emerged that a new wave of operations, which was not leaked to the press, has been carried out as part of the investigation into the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM). Within the scope of the operation, some businesspeople were summoned to the prosecutor's office by phone to give statements. Following their statements, the businesspeople were referred to the criminal judgeship of peace and were arrested.

In this new, secretly conducted wave of the investigation, Mehmet İlhan Gülay, the boss of Gülaylar Group and owner of City's Nişantaşı, was among those arrested.

It was learned that Gülay's arrest was triggered by the allegations of a secret witness codenamed "Sekoya." The secret witness Sekoya claimed that Gülay paid bribes in exchange for an increase in floor area ratio (zoning density).

GÜLAY'S STATEMENT REVEALED

In his statement, Mehmet İlhan Gülay noted that the zoning increase in question was part of a protocol made in 2018, during the term of the then-IMM Mayor Mevlüt Uysal. Stating that this protocol was revised and implemented in 2023 during the Ekrem İmamoğlu era, Gülay argued that no bribes were paid in exchange for the zoning increase.

Emphasizing that the bribery allegations were baseless, Gülay said, "Instead of a bribe, we gave the IMM 60 thousand square meters of land and 5 thousand square meters of sellable area from the project.

Tevfik Göksu, the AKP Group Deputy Chairman of the IMM Assembly, was also aware of the matter. In fact, Göksu requested that a mosque be built on this land, and this request was also incorporated into the zoning plan," he said.

Following his statement, Gülay was referred to the criminal judgeship of peace by the prosecutor's office with a request for arrest and was subsequently arrested by the court.