Rıza Akpolat, mayor of Istanbul’s upscale Beşiktaş district from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was among 23 arrested early Friday on charges of corruption regarding tenders.
Akpolat and other suspects were detained earlier this week as part of an investigation into rigging allegations that involved the municipality, companies run by municipalities and a businessperson awarded lucrative contracts in Beşiktaş on Istanbul’s European side. That businessperson, Aziz Ihsan Aktaş, was among other arrested suspects after they testified for hours at the courthouse on Thursday. The CHP converged a large crowd outside the Beşiktaş municipality building after the announcement of the arrest of the mayor and claimed the arrest was politically motivated.
The mayor denied charges, while the CHP claimed there was no concrete proof linking Akpolat to corruption. In his last testimony before the court ordered his arrest, Akpolat claimed he had no knowledge of the workings of the municipality’s companies and was not aware of relations between some municipal officials accused of getting bribes from Aktaş. He said it was impossible for him to oversee all tender processes and that he had delegated his authority to colleagues instead.
The court ordered the release of 17 other suspects in the case with judiciary control, while all assets belonging to Aktaş were ordered to be seized.
Prosecutors say Aktaş and other suspects ran a criminal organization that organized the tender processes by bribing municipal officials to ensure that their own companies were awarded the tenders. In some cases, tenders were specifically organized to exclude any rivals to Aktaş’s companies, according to reports.
Along with district municipalities, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s (IBB) own companies awarded contracts to Aktaş’s companies according to a report by the Sabah newspaper, though it is unclear whether it resulted from bribery. Sabah newspaper’s report says Aktaş won seven tenders from IETT, a municipal company that runs Istanbul’s mass transportation services, while an asphalt production company of IBB awarded five contracts to Aktaş’s companies.
IETT was the main source of income for Aktaş, pointing out that his companies were the only other winners of contracts worth more than TL 2.2 billion ($62 million). Another winner of contracts was a company whose financial adviser is Özgür Karabat, deputy chair of the CHP whose candidate, Ekrem Imamoğlu, has won successive municipal elections for Istanbul since 2019.
In one case, a company owned by Aktaş won three tenders from IBB’s natural gas company to provide rental vehicles. Sabah says 31 companies sought to participate in tenders, while 10 reached the final stage of the tender process. However, the municipality somehow canceled the applications of those companies and awarded Bilginay Cleaning Company, owned by Aktaş.
Media outlets reported that the investigation revealed that Beşiktaş Municipality awarded 17 tenders to companies owned by Aktaş and his relatives in the past five years. Investigators also discovered that a vehicle owned by Akpolat was sold to a company owned by Aktaş for far higher than its average price and was sold online to a third party.
Aktaş and other suspects are accused of preparing tender application documents with their own conditions and giving them to municipal officials. Officials, in return, launched tender processes where only suspects’ companies could fulfill conditions. In one tender, the municipality specifically asked for a condition only a company Aktaş owned could fulfill and, thus, eliminated the competition.
Reports say cash used in bribery was transported in garbage trucks operated by Beşiktaş municipality.
In 2019, Akpolat won his first municipal election and succeeded an interim mayor appointed after former Mayor Murat Hazinedar was suspended from duty in the wake of a corruption investigation, though he was later acquitted. Akpolat secured a second term in last year’s municipal elections.