Another opposition leader in Turkey has been arrested. Prosecutors accuse him of corruption
The Ankara-based leader of Turkey's main opposition party was arrested on Sunday in a corruption investigation, local media reported, quoted by AFP.
Ümit Erkol, the president of the Ankara provincial organization of the Republican People's Party (CHP) was detained along with eight other people in an investigation launched by the Izmir prosecutor's office regarding alleged irregularities in a contract between the municipality of this city and a construction company, Izbeton, write the websites T24 and Birgün.
According to the Izmir prosecutor, the charges are “embezzlement, fraud, falsification of official documents and failure to fulfill supervision obligations.”
Mansur Yavas, the CHP mayor of Ankara, the Turkish capital, denounced the arrest, writing in a message on X that Erkol was a figure “with a precise public role”, with “no risk of evasion, no possibility of falsifying evidence”
“If an arrest warrant was issued under these circumstances, then there can be no question of justice,” added Mansur Yavas.
The Turkish opposition is under pressure following the March 2025 arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, whose corruption trial began on March 9 along with 413 other defendants.
Imamoglu, who was nominated by the CHO as a candidate for the May 2028 presidential election, was seen as the only one capable of defeating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003.
Four mayors of CHP-run cities, including that of Bursa (northwest), have been arrested since Imamoglu's trial began.
