Turkish court grants conditional release to 15 defendants in Erdoğan rival’s trial
On April 30, 2026, an Istanbul court granted conditional release to 15 of the more than 400 defendants prosecuted alongside jailed Istanbul mayor and CHP opposition figure Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has now been detained for over a year and faces 142 charges with a potential cumulative sentence of up to 2,430 years. Several of the released defendants are Istanbul Municipality lawyers and legal advisers who had been swept up in the prosecution. The case illustrates the use of mass criminal prosecution — staffed by government-aligned prosecutors — as a mechanism for incapacitating an entire opposition political-legal infrastructure, with municipal counsel and bar members caught in the dragnet alongside elected officials.