A court in Turkey has sentenced Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu to more than two and a half years in prison for insulting government officials, the BBC reported . Until the appeal, Imamoglu remains at large, he and his supporters gathered for a rally in the center of Istanbul.
The prosecution demanded that Imamoglu be sentenced to four years and one month in prison. He did not attend the meeting. After the verdict was announced, Imamoglu called on the city's residents to gather at the mayor's office.
The case against Imamoglu was opened in 2019, after his victory in the election of the mayor of Istanbul. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said about violations and fraud in the elections. As a result, the CEC canceled the election results and held a second vote, in which Imamoglu again won. Imamoglu called the CEC members who canceled the results of the March elections "fools."
52-year-old Imamoglu, from the secular Republican People's Party, is considered one of the strongest opposition candidates, and is recognized as one of Erdogan's possible rivals in the June 2023 presidential election. A prison term would make him ineligible to hold political office or run for president.