Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for insulting officials from Türkiye's Supreme Election Board (YSK), according to a court ruling announced on Wednesday.
The court also imposed a political ban on the mayor, however, both rulings must be confirmed by an appeals court.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the chairperson of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), cut short a visit to Germany and returned to Türkiye following the ruling.
Imamoğlu is charged with insulting the officials in a speech he made about a repeat of the 2019 mayoral election. He had said that the decision of seven YSK members who voted in favor of annulling his mandate as the mayor of Istanbul does not mean anything to him.
"Those who annulled the elections on March 31 are fools," the mayor said.
The mayor denied insulting members of the electoral council, insisting his words were a response to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu calling him "a fool" and accusing Imamoğlu of criticizing Türkiye during a visit to the European Parliament.
He narrowly won that election over his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) rival, former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and, after those results were annulled, he won the rerun of the vote by a comfortable margin.
Voters in Istanbul cast four different votes in the March 31 elections, electing district administrators, mayors, municipal councils and local officials. Of those four votes, the YSK ruled to annul only the Istanbul mayoral result.
The board ruled to hold renewed mayoral elections on June 23, 2019. The YSK said its decision to annul the polls was based on unsigned result documents from the election and on some ballot box officials not being civil servants.
Imamoğlu's mayoral victory marked the first time President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AK Party and its predecessors had lost in Türkiye's largest city in 25 years.
He is among the names in the mix to run as the main opposition's presidential candidate against incumbent Erdoğan in next year's elections.
Opposition politician Meral Akşener, whose center-right Good Party (IP) joined forces with the CHP in the 2019 municipal elections, traveled to Istanbul from Ankara in a show of support for the mayor.
Akşener recalled that Erdoğan served as Istanbul's mayor in the 1990s and was unjustly removed from office for reading a poem that the courts deemed to be a violation of Türkiye’s secular laws. He returned as prime minister with a landslide win a few years later.
"This song won't end here," she said, repeating a comment that Erdoğan made at the time.
During the trial, the court heard testimony from Imamoğlu’s press officer, Murat Ongun, who confirmed that the mayor’s words were in response to Soylu.
"Either before or after this event, or even on May 6 (2019), when the elections were canceled, I did not hear any negative words from Ekrem Imamoğlu concerning the (Supreme Electoral Council) members," the T24 news website quoted Ongun as saying. "All of his statements were made toward political figures."
At his municipal headquarters across the Bosporus on the European side of Istanbul, Imamoğlu told thousands of supporters that the verdict marked "profound unlawfulness."
Voters would respond in the presidential and parliamentary elections that are due by next June, he said.
A jail sentence or political ban on Imamoğlu would need to be upheld in appeals courts, potentially extending an outcome to the case beyond the election date.
The leaders of a six-party opposition bloc, including the CHP, are expected to hold a meeting in Istanbul on Thursday.
‘No final decision’
Responding to the opposition’s criticism that the court ruling was politically motivated, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said on Wednesday: No organ, authority or person can give orders and instructions, send circulars, make recommendations or suggestions to courts and judges in the exercise of judicial power."
"The decision of the Istanbul Anatolian 7th Criminal Court of First Instance is not a final decision. Appeals and cassation against this decision are open. The trial process continues," Bozdağ told Anadolu Agency (AA).