İmamoğlu testifies for a second time in Silivri: number of investigations reaches 20

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor and presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu testified in the investigation conducted by the Silivri Chief Public Prosecutor's Office Bureau of Investigations into Crimes by Public Officials over his remarks in the IBB case, accompanied by his lawyer Tora Pekin, in the SEGBİS room of the Silivri Courthouse.

İmamoğlu had also testified the same day within the scope of the investigation into his book "Millet Şahidimdir," which contains the defense he was unable to make at the first hearing. Stating that the number of investigations opened against him had reached 20, İmamoğlu said, "For the most part, various of my statements are being made the subject of investigation," and noted that his political statements and criticisms, which contain no praise of violence or call for violence, are being made the subject of investigations and cases.

Arguing that prosecutors' offices are trying to extract crimes from his words, İmamoğlu said, "They are pushing harder and harder. They take action on the most outlandish grounds and constantly try to extract crimes from my words."

Reacting to his remarks in the IBB case being assessed as a threat, İmamoğlu criticized the characterization of his words that he would put those who prepared the indictment on trial as the crime of threatening. İmamoğlu said, "I am not a judge, I am not a court," and stated that in this respect he used the concept of "trying" in a figurative sense.

Stating that he was criticizing those who prepared the indictment, İmamoğlu said, "In my view, I throw their slanders, their lies and their wrongs that they have poured into it back in their faces. I put forward my own facts."

When the prosecutor's office asked whom he meant by his words, İmamoğlu said he meant the process and practices of the person who was then Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor and is now Minister of Justice, in conducting the investigation. He stated that he had no personal intent toward those who wrote the indictment or the court panel, and that it was not possible to understand the court panel as falling within his description of "those who prepared the indictment" in terms of job definition.

Regarding his words being assessed as a threat, İmamoğlu asked, "What is essential is the nation's judgment, that is, the verdict it renders. Is this a threat?" and then said that if prosecutors and judges accept this as a threat, that is their problem, not his. Saying "I think a self-confident prosecutor or a judge does not fear the word trial," İmamoğlu argued that through the investigation an attempt was being made to attach a crime to a concept that carries no meaning of threat.