Court adjourns ”insult’ suit against potential Erdogan contender

An Istanbul court on Wednesday adjourned until Sept. 21, judgment in a suit against Istanbul’s opposition party mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu for allegedly insulting state officials in a 2019 speech.

Prosecutors are seeking up to four years in prison for İmamoğlu who slammed the proceedings as “shameful” and urged the court to act within the laws in a video message on Twitter on Wednesday.

İmamoğlu, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was seen as a potential challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2023.

The verdict would have come just weeks after a prison sentence and a political ban against CHP’s Istanbul party leader Canan Kaftancıoğlu, one of İmamoğlu’s key aides.

İmamoğlu criticized the decision to re-run the local elections that took place in March 2019.

İmamoğlu narrowly won the mayoral election against his rival from Erdogan’s ruling party, and after the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) annulled the result, he won in a re-run in June 2019 by an even larger margin.

“Those who annulled the elections on March 31 are fools,” İmamoğlu said in a speech in November 2019.

İmamoğlu’s press office said the mayor had not been referring to the YSK but had been responding to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who it was said had called İmamoğlu a fool himself.

However, İmamoğlu’s office said the trial was being used as a “weapon” to impose a political ban on İmamoğlu and “eliminate him from the upcoming elections”.