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A district mayor from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been detained along with several others in the central Turkish province of Kırıkkale as part of a corruption investigation, the DHA news agency reported.
Ahmet Sungur, mayor of the Yahşihan district, was detained at his home on Friday morning in connection with a probe into alleged misuse of his official authority for personal gain.
The investigation is being led by the Kırıkkale Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office together with the provincial police department’s unit for organized crime and smuggling.
Sungur is among seven suspects being held on accusations of “extortion,” a crime under Article 250 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which concerns offenses in which someone in public office abuses their power to extract illegal benefits from others. The detainees also include businesspeople.
Earlier this year, Sungur publicly claimed that Yahşihan suffered over 1 billion Turkish lira ($24.1 million) in losses under the previous administration, alleging a large share of the debt came from fake invoices and irregularities.
The district’s former mayor, Osman Türkyılmaz of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an AKP ally, was detained along with 11 people in May as part of a similar investigation. Türkyılmaz and four others were arrested while the rest were released.
Following Sungur’s detention, the AKP’s Central Executive Board voted to refer him to the party’s disciplinary committee with a recommendation for temporary expulsion while the investigation continues.
Sungur was first elected mayor of Yahşihan in 2009 from the MHP but switched to the AKP in 2011, before the two parties became allies under the People’s Alliance. He was elected again in 2014, this time as an AKP candidate. He lost the 2019 local election to the MHP’s Türkyılmaz but returned to office in 2024, winning 41 percent of the vote.
The detention of Sungur, unusual for an AKP mayor, comes amid a broader crackdown on opposition municipalities led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Over the past year, 12 CHP mayors, including İstanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, have been arrested on charges ranging from corruption and bribery to terrorism.
Since last year’s local elections, when the CHP emerged as the country’s leading party, more than 500 people linked to the party or the İstanbul Municipality have also been detained or arrested.
The CHP and its supporters say the investigations are aimed at sidelining opposition politicians and discrediting the party in the eyes of the public after the party’s electoral gains. They claim that the cases are also intended to block İmamoğlu, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest rival, from running in the next presidential election.
İmamoğlu was declared his party’s presidential candidate in March, when he was arrested.