İmamoğlu takes the floor in the IMM case

The IMM case, in which 402 defendants, including 106 who are currently detained, are being tried—among them Republican People's Party (CHP) presidential candidate and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu—continues into its 5th week.

Following the release of 18 individuals last Thursday, the trial has moved into its 16th day. In today's session, the defense arguments of the detained defendants are expected to continue.

It was announced that the first defense of the day would be presented by IMM Head of Road Maintenance and Infrastructure Coordination Department Seyfüllah Demirel, who is 18th on the case file.

Here are the minute-by-minute developments from the courtroom in the IMM case:

14:00: THE HEARING HAS RESUMED

The 16th-day session has resumed following a break. Zafer Keleş, the brother of IMM Sports Club President Fatih Keleş, has taken the stand.

12:40: "WE ARE EATING FISH IN OUR DREAMS"

Today's session has been adjourned. As İmamoğlu was leaving the courtroom due to hoarseness in his voice, spectators asked, "Are you sick?" He replied that he had a slight sore throat but was fine. When a voice from the audience said, "They should give you fish," İmamoğlu responded, "We are eating fish in our dreams."

12:00: İMAMOĞLU: WITH THE COLLABORATION OF THE EXPERT AND THE INDICTMENT...

Following Demirel's judicial questioning, Ekrem İmamoğlu requested the floor and proceeded to ask questions to Seyfüllah Demirel. Before doing so, he turned to the presiding judge and said the following:

"With an indictment prepared through the collaboration—mind you, I am underlining this—the collaboration of expert reports and the indictment, there is no bureaucrat in Turkey you cannot imprison—if the system is going to operate this way! Throw everyone in jail! It is that clear. Believe me, I am not saying that to you, we apologize. I mean, I am not saying it to you."

Following these remarks, İmamoğlu began his questions to Demirel. Here is what was discussed during that part of the hearing:

Ekrem İmamoğlu: Mr. Seyfullah, our esteemed department head; you mentioned it just now, but before you started your duty, we may or may not have had an acquaintance or a conversation. I am not saying this because it is a crime, but for the sake of clarity and in terms of preference, did we ever have an ideological collaboration or a shared table, or any such phase in our lives, or did we not?

Seyfüllah Demirel: We had no such collaboration. We were not acquainted. He said one word; he asked, 'Do we have an ideological closeness?' We do not. Our esteemed President was elected as our mayor from the Beylikdüzü Municipality in 2014, elected from the Republican People's Party. In 2014, my wife—who is my lawyer and will also act as my attorney—and I were mayoral candidates from the Nationalist Movement Party in Avcılar. Before I was appointed to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, I had no acquaintance or any meeting with President Ekrem, but because I am a municipal official, I know everyone, as I have been serving this organization for 32 years.

Ekrem İmamoğlu: Therefore, I am moving on to my second question. We researched the field and the public sector, and as I explained to you and your esteemed panel before, a job offer was made to you following analyses based on human resources principles and science, rather than lists presented to us in this or that way. I am saying this because you mentioned it just now; it is not in the form of a right to ask a question, otherwise I would have asked. It was made to you in the form of a job offer. You accepted this request. In these meetings and after this acceptance, we simply wished you well. In these meetings and in this acceptance, did you encounter any special conditions, any special agreements, or any guidance—or any condition outside of public morality and decorum?

Seyfüllah Demirel: We did encounter them, your honor. Our Mayor asked a question, and we did encounter them. Let me state this, we did encounter them. Our first acquaintance with our esteemed Mayor was when we gave a briefing on the Road Maintenance Department to the Mayor and senior executives at the Road Maintenance Department, and introduced the department. After this introduction, while touring the campus—the campus of our department—I am saying this specifically regarding this topic, we showed our esteemed Mayor the salt depots and so on regarding winter operations. How this work is done, how the trucks are prepared... Our Mayor gave us a very interesting instruction there. He said, 'Mr. Seyfullah, when I was the Mayor of Beylikdüzü, I requested a truckload of salt from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and they begrudged me a truckload of salt; they didn't give it.' Our previous Secretary General, Mr. Oğuz, and Mr. Murat were also with us. He said, 'It is my instruction to you: regardless of the party, regardless of the party, you will give as much salt as anyone requests.' Because salt is very important in Istanbul; district municipalities generally do not buy salt, they get it from the Metropolitan Municipality. Of course, we did not fail to carry out our Mayor's instructions. We gave everyone as much salt as they deserved. We could not give everyone as much salt as they wanted. (laughter) But throughout this process, during the time I worked with Mr. İmamoğlu, I can say this with peace of mind: I have never received an illegitimate offer from any mayor—including the mayors I worked with before—in any way, including our esteemed Mayor.

Ekrem İmamoğlu: Therefore, I would like to ask this as well, your honor, but this was a very interesting reminder. Because when I was the Mayor of Beylikdüzü, we know that everyone received salt from the Metropolitan depots during winter conditions, but we could not get any. We could not. And at that time, there were bureaucrat friends here, and later a mayor. We couldn't get it. Then we saw that one of our contractor friends brought 2 or 3 trucks of salt. We asked, "How did you get it?" He said, "We made a deal with the person at the scale and got it." Do you know? We experienced these things. So, would I make anyone else experience this? Thank you for reminding me.

We have only been greeting each other with Mr. Seyfullah here for the last 3 or 4 weeks. I mean, these are noble people. There are many of them. There are many respectable people here, and I am adding these because my heart is truly burning. Did we have any work at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality regarding benefits, personal matters, etc., other than the interests of Istanbul?

Seyrullah Demirel: No.

Ekrem İmamoğlu: Esteemed judge, esteemed panel; look, I have to say this, my heart is truly burning. I mean, these expert findings need to be examined well. I am telling my defense attorney friends here too, I might be missing something, I am not a lawyer or anything. But I think a criminal complaint should be filed regarding all these experts. You know that I was tried in another courtroom in another expert witness case. You asked a very valuable question earlier, "Why would they write it?" You are right. Why should they write it? They shouldn't. But I claim that I believe these reports were written through a system established by a conflict of interest between the prosecution and the expert. Because such intentional sentences are not written. There are other findings as well. I have asked my questions. Thank you, thank you, Mr. President.

11:00: SEYFÜLLAH DEMİREL AT THE PODIUM

IMM Head of Road Maintenance and Infrastructure Department Seyfüllah Demirel took the podium to testify.

"I did not reach this position through hometown connections. I reached it through my merit. Whatever I did in previous municipalities, I worked with the same criteria at the IMM. I find it significant that I was not arrested in previous municipalities but was arrested in this one. If we were working with someone other than İmamoğlu at the IMM, or even if that person were from the CHP, we would not be standing before you."

Demirel spoke as follows:

"It is a project worth 114 million 381 thousand liras. You can open partial bids to subcontractors like İSFALT. Naturally, İSFALT will have it done by subcontractors. Do they need to set up a team to operate it? Is such a thing possible? We hold open tenders, they come before me, and I have the work done."

From 2003 to 2025, no one other than İSFALT has won the tender for this work. İSFALT has won all the tenders. If İSFALT won the tenders all these years, it wasn't considered bid-rigging, but when we win it, it becomes bid-rigging? Our specifications haven't changed either. The value of the documents processed over the years hasn't changed either.

You are both a director at the General Directorate of Highways and appointed as an expert witness, yet you come here to distort a job you do every day. You come to give a different meaning to work done by the IMM.

Until 2019, the only document requested regarding winter operations before us was whether the work was done or not. After 2019, in order to increase competition—I say this with all sincerity, I wanted this; I have an ego, I like competition in the work I do—we were preparing reports every month on how much profit we made for the municipality compared to the previous year and sending them to senior management. We were tired of preparing these.

I added the following to the work experience certificate: Any of the works involving winter condition management, solid waste collection, vehicle and equipment operation, or maintenance and repair would be accepted as similar work; they would be able to submit bids for our tender. I did this to increase competition.

But the expert witnesses interpreted this as: by tendering works that have no natural connection between them, such as winter condition management and solid waste collection, the volume of the work increased, and competition was restricted by preventing bidders from entering the tender. There isn't even a unit price in our file. That is a different job; they have confused them; I did not issue such a tender. It is not possible for an expert witness who is a director at the Highways to not know this. Why is he writing this? The prosecution also believes him. It is mentioned in at least 10 places. Why are we being accused of something we didn't do? Why are we in prison? I have a grandchild I haven't seen, who was just born. Why am I here? I am here because of these liars. I did not rig the tender. I actually expanded the tender so everyone could participate, but here we are in prison."

11:00 | REACTION FROM ERDOĞDU IN THE COURTROOM

According to reports from Halk TV, Aykut Erdoğdu took the floor after the detained defendants were brought into the courtroom and stated, "There is no food or water downstairs. How can there be such mistreatment? This is officially torture, and our surroundings are filthy... I am a member of parliament; no one will come to harm from me. A sandwich with razor-cut cheese is served, and the holding cells where we sit are in very poor condition. Even if the country were under Greek occupation, they would treat us better."he said.

10:40 | THE COURT PANEL HAS TAKEN ITS PLACE

The hearing began after the detained defendants and the court panel took their places in the courtroom.

Taking the floor before the defense process, Ekrem İmamoğlu reiterated his request for trial without detention, stating, "There are truly very innocent people; women, children, siblings, and families" he said.

İmamoğlu stated the following:

"May the future course of the trial lead to good outcomes; because we are in great need of good. Our friends have a complaint: Those who bring pre-packaged products here were unable to bring them this morning, they could not purchase them. I wanted to convey this note to see if you could contribute to this.

We had a request for lunch; we had asked for your contribution regarding its resolution this week; if you could contribute again...

Another issue: after the defense arguments that finished very late on Thursday, 18 of our friends were released, which naturally pleased us. I would like to express that we value your approach. I want to draw attention to the need for you to provide direction with a different perspective. Taking even a single day from people's freedom turns into a period of time that cannot be compensated for. I must say that every decision made will provide either a positive or negative contribution.

"WE SUPPORT YOUR POSITIVE STEPS"

It is not just about imprisonment; there are also processes regarding judicial measures. People's lives are affected, from those under house arrest to those whose property has been seized. There are still people here who are detained because of their fathers or relatives. There is suffering endured by people who have served their state. I would like to point out that it is very important for this to be evaluated now, rather than waiting for the end of the month for an interim decision. There are drivers who are detained, and those who have undergone major surgeries...

While there are those here who are subjected to certain practices, those who are imprisoned, and those who are crushed under judicial measures outside, I do not think it is right to shout slogans in the field regarding effective remorse.

There are women, children, siblings, and families; you carry a very heavy burden on your shoulders. As people being tried before you, I wanted to say that we will stand by you in every positive step you take, and that we will react otherwise.

"YOU CARRY A VERY HEAVY BURDEN ON YOUR SHOULDERS"

Because we are experiencing an agenda of operations. I will not go into these, of course; it does not concern this place. But it is happening. There is a political side to it, and it is happening. Certain judicial matters, those arrested, those detained... You look and see that they have all been released, they are all walking around in the field right now. People who defrauded the Central Bank are walking around in the field; they were released in 3 months! But here, people who have dedicated their lives to their state are imprisoned and are going through a trial process.

There are truly very innocent people. I underline it again; there are women, children, siblings, and families... There is a very heavy burden on your shoulders. In the process of good and fair trial, as people being tried before you, I would like to express that we will stand by you in every step you take, but that we will also show the necessary reaction otherwise. I hope you will provide a trial process that leads to good outcomes for all my friends in this court. I wanted to say these things. Thank you.

Following İmamoğlu's words, the presiding judge also responded. The judge said, "We said we would continue our detention evaluations during the process. There is no one who cannot leave their residence; we have lifted that. We have conveyed the issue of food rations; they said they could only provide such a thing for dinner and that it is normally against the regulations, but we will try to find a solution for that as well."

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NAMES RELEASED LAST WEEK

Kadriye Kasapoğlu Ali Üner, Altan Ertürk, Baran Gönül, Başak Tatlı, Davut Bildik, Ebubekir Akın, Esra Huri Bulduk, Evren Şirolu, Fatih Yağcı, Hüseyin Yurddaş, Kadir Öztürk, Mahir Gün, Mustafa Bostancı, Nazan Başelli, Sabri Caner Kırca, Sırrı Küçük, Zehra Keleş.