A plaintiff in the corruption trial against the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) has alleged that the city’s ousted and arrested mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, sought to receive a $1 million bribe from him for a construction license.
A total of 100 suspects, including Imamoğlu, IBB press adviser Murat Ongun, Imamoğlu’s construction General Secretary Tuncay Yılmaz, businessperson Fatih Keleş, Imamoğlu’s consultant Ertan Yıldız and others linked to the organization, have been implicated in charges related to “being a leader of a criminal organization,” “membership in a criminal organization,” “bribery,” “fraud,” “illegal data acquisition” and “tampering with a tender.”
Fuat Keleş claimed that the suspect asked him for a bribe upon receiving a directive from Imamoğlu for a construction project in 2015, when Imamoğlu served as mayor of Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü district, Turkish media reported on Wednesday.
Keleş, a partner of Keleşoğlu Holding, said his company took over a housing project with “lots of parcels” from the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) in Beylikdüzü in 2015.
When Keleşoğlu acquired Eston Yapı Inc. from the TMSF, it had obtained construction permits for two parcels. As construction continued on these parcels, the company sought to obtain licenses for the subsequent parcels from the relevant municipal unit, which was governed by Imamoğlu in Beylikdüzü.
“During this period, my father, Mustafa Keleş, had a lawsuit going on regarding a commercial dispute with his other company, Arke Construction and Kameroğlu Construction, one of my father’s partners in other projects,” Keleş told investigators.
He claimed Imamoğlu called his father regarding the issue and instructed him to “drop this lawsuit.”
After his father refused to do so, Imamoğlu would not sign their company’s construction permit.
“Later, while I was thinking, ‘How am I going to get a construction permit?’ someone named Fatih Keleş, whom I had never met before, came to my office. He spoke to me and said, ‘I will solve your permit issue. Let’s talk about this in my office.'”
When Keleş met Fatih Keleş at his office, the man told him: “You need to bring me $1 million to solve the license issue.”
Keleş said he prepared a promissory note for Fatih Keleş and delivered it in person in three equal installments.
“In the following days, I went to this office again, delivered the money, took the promissory notes and destroyed them. I had to make this payment in three separate payments by personally delivering them to Fatih Keleş’s office,” he said.
“Apart from this, neither I nor my company has built even a square meter of additional space outside the authority given to us by the zoning plans,” Keleş said.
He insisted he “had to pay this money to obtain a license from the requested file, which was prepared in accordance with the legislation and which was my right.”
“If I had not obtained a license, all my commercial activities would have been disrupted. This person, knowing our situation, scared me by saying he would not accept ‘not even 1 cent less than $1 million,’ all with the orders he received from Imamoğlu.”
Keleş said he was the victim and would take legal action regarding the incident.
He also stated that he submitted the building permit he received from the Beylikdüzü Municipality to the prosecutor’s office for it to be included in the investigation file.
Prosecutors say Imamoğlu was among the leaders of a criminal network apparently enriching themselves through bribes and rigged public tenders. Ekrem Imamoğlu and 99 others are also accused of illegally obtaining personal data, while a separate probe also accuses him, IBB Deputy Secretary-General Mahir Polat, Istanbul’s Şişli District Mayor Resul Emrah Şahan and four others of helping the PKK. Security forces are still searching for 19 fugitive suspects.