Ankara- At the dawn of July 1, a city witnessed Izmir A massive raids and arrests campaign targeting the Greater Izmir municipality and current and former officials in it, based on a judicial investigation into financial corruption cases, as the city’s public prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 157 people on the background of accusations of manipulating project tenders and violating the implementation of strict contracts and fraud.
The arrest of at least 120 employees was confirmed currently and former at the end of the first day, so that the number later increased to 137 with the continued searches for the rest of the wanted men, and was one of the most prominent detainees Tong Swaria People’s Republican Party In the city, along with a large number of senior employees and managers of the municipality and businessmen dealing with it.
According to a statement issued by the Public Prosecution in Izmir, these procedures were launched based on the report of the Turkish Accounting Bureau and other reports, prepared by the Ministry of Interior inspectors and independent experts, all of which indicated serious violations that affected contracts and major projects in the municipality.
The accusations of the accusations
The most prominent accusations revolve around manipulating bids of 17 tenders related to renting mechanisms, equipment and road paving projects, amid suspicions of collusion that led to wasting public money on a large scale, and the presence of financial excesses in the municipal expenses and its subsidiaries between 2021 and 2024.
Investigations also indicate that one of the municipality’s cooperative housing association has paid hospitality for senior officials without any official documents, and hiring vehicles without including fundamentalism within the financial records.
The authorities estimated the value of the financial violations discovered in three separate investigation files of about 1.5 billion pounds (about 55 million dollars), and include housing cooperative projects, vehicle rental, and tenders related to infrastructure work.
The security operation began in the early hours of last Tuesday morning, as the police forces carried out simultaneous raids targeting the homes and offices of the suspects, under the direct supervision of the Deputy Prosecutor in Izmir, responsible for terrorist cases and organized crime. The authorities were able to arrest dozens of people who were transferred to the Financial Crime Center of the Izmir Security Directorate for their interrogation.
Additional details began to be revealed on the scale of alleged violations. The investigation sources reported that the municipality’s Izbatoun company conducted large numbers of mechanisms and equipment without including these operations in official records.
Investigations also showed that the expenditures of hospitality and entertainment for some of the major municipal officials were loaded on the company through cooperatives, without regular bills, in addition to allegations of achieving illegal gains by passing subconscious contractors under the urbanization of urban transformation projects.
Wave of anger
Local media revealed that the Public Prosecution expanded the scope of scrutiny to affect files dating back to Tong Swariar, the mayor of Sfri’s siege before moving to his position in Izmir. Among the most prominent of what was raised in this context is a claim to transfer the ownership of a plot of land of the municipality to the housing cooperative established and chaired by his wife.
Suspicions of other deals linked to members of his family, including the purchase of Izmir municipality in 2021 foodstuffs – including meat canned meat worth 424 thousand pounds (about 10600 dollars) – from a cooperative union headed by his wife, as well as assigning a contract to supply milk to school students to a cooperative that she also runs, instead of the former provider.
The arrest campaign ignited a wave of anger in political circles, especially within the Republican People’s Party, which has been controlling the city’s administration for decades.
The party leader went Ozgor Ezzing To Izmir to express his solidarity with the arrested municipal officials, and held an emergency meeting led by the local party. In a statement he made in front of the city’s party headquarters, Ozal considered that the investigation is “politicized with distinction”, stressing that the Republican people “will not stand idly by this systematic political targeting of its symbols at the local level.”
For his part, Murad Jean Ishilqaq, deputy head of the party’s discipline committee, considered that the campaigns that affected the municipality of Izmir and its senior officials represent a “simultaneous political step with the electoral agenda”, stressing that it aims to silence the opposition and undermine the principle of the independence of the local administration.
He stressed – in an interview with Al -Jazeera Net – the need to respect the rule of law and ensure all the rights of defense, calling for investigations to be managed within the framework of the principles of social democracy, and on the basis of transparency, accountability and participation. He also demanded that the trials be made without a reserve arrest, the activation of independent control mechanisms, and the removal of judicial files from any political effects to ensure their processing with fairness and integrity.
Legal foundations
On the other hand, the government defended the legitimacy of the measures taken against the Izmir municipality, stressing that the ongoing investigations are based on purely legal foundations, not political motives, as the opposition claims. Fakhr Al -Din Alton, head of the Turkish Communications Department, said that describing the process as a “coup plan” or “conspiracy” represents an explicit threat to the independence of the judiciary and an attempt to distort its reputation.
And he denied his matter Jamil Ayali, a member of the Central Committee ofJustice and Development PartyThat is, government interference in the investigations, noting that the complaint that blew up the case was “originally” the current mayor of the Republican People’s Party.
Al -Jazeera Net continued with a number of leaders of justice and development to obtain a comment on the matter, but she did not receive any response until the moment of the publication of this report.
For his part, political analyst Ali Asmar believes that investigations and arrests represent a new episode in the series of judicial procedures that affected major municipalities run by the Republican people, considering that fighting corruption remains a legal commitment to any authority, but the timing and nature of this step open the door for multiple political interpretations.
He explains to Al -Jazeera Net, that the internal crisis in the party, after the overthrow of B.Kamal Klijdaroglu And the rise of a suite Akram Imamoglu And Ozal, she contributed to leaking sensitive files that the government used to move judicially, especially in Izmir, which represents the “opposition castle.”
In his opinion, it is difficult to make sure that the matter is purely legal or a pure political, as it seems closer to a mixture of the two in light of the complications of the Turkish scene.
He also pointed out that the absence of solidarity from the rest of the opposition parties with the Republican people helped to keep the crisis within a narrow partisan scope, instead of turning it into a major battle between the government and the opposition combined. But he warned that any miscalculation in dealing with this file may blow a widespread popular anger, calling for a balanced approach that combines anti -corruption and avoiding the impression of targeting the opposition just because it is opposition.