Özgür Özel reveals secret witness detail in IBB indictment: 'They weren't there on March 31...'

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel attended the opening ceremony of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's Kabataş Square and Transfer Center. In his speech there, Özel addressed the IBB indictment and used harsh language.

Stating that there is no concrete evidence in the indictment, Özel said, "There is not a single penny of proven evidence in the indictment, not a single piece of evidence regarding money." The CHP leader stated, "If there is anything proven, it is what those who slandered out of effective remorse said when they were cornered. Regarding our Mayor Ekrem and our honest municipal bureaucrats, there is not a single penny of proof, evidence, or anything at all. What is there? 969 instances of 'as far as I remember,' 691 instances of 'allegedly,' 546 instances of 'I heard,' 499 instances of 'it could be,' 235 instances of 'I think so,' and 9 instances of 'I felt.' There is not a single piece of evidence."

"THEY ATTEMPTED TO SHUT DOWN OUR PARTY"

Özel also reacted to the attempts against the Republican People's Party (CHP). Saying, "Let no one distort the essence and the words of the matter. In the end, these insolent people tried to file a closure case against the Republican People's Party," Özel continued his words as follows:

"The nation stood up and said, 'Kenan Evren could not close the party founded by Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on the battlefield, will you close it?' They stood up to them! On one hand, a letter immediately came from the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office; 'We have nothing to do with the closure, we just made a notification.' The nation pressed even harder, 'We didn't say close it, we just did our duty.' The letter they wrote emerged. The prosecutor, with whom they are in competition, leaked the letter reminding of the Constitution's party closure articles from the prosecutor's office and sent it to the public square."

"I MIXED UP THE NAMES OF THE WOODS"

Continuing his speech, Özgür Özel touched upon the secret witnesses mentioned in the indictment and used the following expressions:

"As Mr. Tayyip sometimes says, 'This is a blessing from God,' my tongue slipped last night while I was speaking without looking at my notes; I said 'Çınar' (Plane tree) instead of 'Meşe' (Oak). It is a blessing from God. If I had said Çınar, they would have sat down and kept quiet. I said Çınar instead of saying there was a perjurer named Meşe. I mixed up the names of the woods. When I said Çınar instead of Meşe, they immediately made a statement. While saying, 'It was claimed that a secret witness named Çınar retracted their statement and then attempted suicide. There is no such thing,' they said that İlke gave a statement in November 2024. We are facing such a caught-in-the-act situation; on March 19, there were 3 secret witnesses.

Meşe, Ladin (Spruce), Çınar... Today there are 15 secret witnesses. But in the statements given to them on March 19, there is Meşe, Ladin, Çınar, especially the Meşe statement for Mayor Ekrem. Is there someone named İlke that day? No. There is someone named Meşe that day. They gave some promises to that Meşe. When Meşe started not being able to enter the 7th floor, when the promises made started not being kept, Meşe lost the feature of being able to be a secret witness. He said, 'I will talk,' 'I will tell the truth.' When the gentlemen were preparing the indictment, they removed Meşe's statements; none of the Meşe statements now asked of Mayor Ekrem and his colleagues are in the indictment. Meşe is gone. They put İlke in his place. İlke was not there on March 31. Now he says İlke gave a statement on November 18, 2024. They charged the statements retracted by Meşe to İlke. They wrote those lies as İlke. They were caught red-handed."

WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

CHP leader Özgür Özel had made allegations regarding the secret witnesses in the IBB indictment at a rally in Sultanbeyli the day before.

In that speech, Özel had used the following expressions: "The indictment was released yesterday, and in the accusations against dozens of our friends, there are things said by a secret witness or by slanderers. Let me express a bombshell here that we will talk about a lot. In the beginning, there was a 'Çınar,' he would make every slander. Then they fell out with this 'Çınar.' The words spoken, promises made, and lies told by this 'Çınar' did not match each other. They started not taking this 'Çınar' to the 7th floor. This 'Çınar' attempted suicide on the 6th floor. The person in the suicide attempt incident that all courthouse reporters know from here is 'Çınar' himself. Now they have taken the statements that 'Çınar' made months ago and made a new secret witness named 'İlke' say them. It is clear from here that it is a lie, a setup; in an investigation, they take what the secret witness said eight months ago and give it to the secret witness called 'İlke'."

DENIAL FROM THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office issued a statement denying the allegations. The following statements were included in the announcement:

"It is clearly understood that the event in the video shared on the social media account relates to a suicide attempt by one of our citizens that took place on 26.08.2025, that our security guards intervened in the incident and persuaded the person to give up on suicide, that neither of the individuals is the persons codenamed Çınar and İlke, whose statements were taken within the scope of the investigation conducted into the criminal organization and for whom witness protection procedures were applied, and furthermore, that the statement date of the witness codenamed İlke within the scope of the investigation is 18/11/2024, and the statement date of the witness codenamed Çınar is 21/11/2024, which is a date very close to the mentioned statement, and as a result, the statements made are clearly in the nature of disinformation."

News Source: 12punto