A Turkish court has jailed pending trial 18 employees of the Istanbul municipality on corruption charges, state-owned Anadolu and other media reported on Wednesday, amid a crackdown on the opposition and the city's jailed mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Broadcaster NTV said 34 of the total 52 people who were detained at the weekend under the investigation were released with judicial restrictions © Mena Today
A Turkish court has jailed pending trial 18 employees of the Istanbul municipality on corruption charges, state-owned Anadolu and other media reported on Wednesday, amid a crackdown on the opposition and the city's jailed mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Imamoglu, President Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival who leads him in polls, was jailed in March pending trial over corruption charges. He also faces charges of aiding a terrorist group.
The mayor has denied all charges and his arrest triggered the largest protests in a decade, economic turmoil and accusations of a politicised judiciary. The government rejects those claims and says the judiciary is independent.
Broadcaster NTV said 34 of the total 52 people who were detained at the weekend under the investigation were released with judicial restrictions.
Turkish media had reported on Saturday that authorities detained dozens of Istanbul municipality employees as part of legal probes focused around Imamoglu, expanding a crackdown on the main opposition that began late last year.
Those detained included the municipality's secretary general, Imamoglu's chief of staff, the chairman and deputy chairman of the municipality's water and sewerage administration (ISKI), as well as a department head at ISKI.
Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun
The U.S. military said on Saturday two of its personnel were killed in Jordan and another was missing after an Iranian attack, while Iran's supreme leader said Washington would pay for "seeking to incite war" after a seventh straight night of U.S. strikes.
A Lebanese soldier was killed and an officer and another soldier were wounded when a suspicious object exploded in an army vehicle in the southern Lebanese town of Mansouri, the Lebanese army said on Saturday.
Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written statement on Saturday that repeated U.S. breaches of a memorandum of understanding signed by the presidents of Iran and the United States had shown that President Donald Trump's signature was "utterly worthless and devoid of credibility."
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.