An adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s far-right ally, Devlet Bahçeli, has publicly called on Justice Minister Akın Gürlek to hold a detailed news conference and disclose his land registry records, in a rare split between allies over allegations that Gürlek amassed real estate wealth far beyond what a public salary could support.
Yıldıray Çiçek, an adviser to Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Bahçeli and chief columnist at the MHP-linked Türkgün newspaper, wrote Tuesday that Gürlek should clear up all doubts in public so that neither the sprawling corruption case against the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality nor Gürlek’s own standing as a legal official remains under suspicion.
The call is significant because the MHP is President Erdoğan’s key partner and has backed the legal campaign against jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the presidential candidate of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Çiçek’s columns are widely seen as reflecting Bahçeli’s political line, though Bahçeli himself has not commented on the matter.
Çiçek framed the opposition’s accusations as an attempt to distract from the municipality case but said Gürlek still has a responsibility to remove any cloud over the allegations by fully disclosing his records.
CHP leader Özgür Özel last week accused Gürlek of having current and past real estate transactions totaling 452 million Turkish lira ($10.3 million at current exchange rates). Özel said the scale of the holdings could not be explained by the income of a longtime judge and prosecutor, even accounting for two incomes in Gürlek’s household. Gürlek’s wife is also a judge.
Gürlek denied the accusations, saying he owns only four properties and that documents shown by Özel do not match actual land registry records. He said he and his wife regularly submit asset declarations to the proper authorities and announced that he would begin legal action against Özel.
On Tuesday, however, Özel said no lawsuit had been filed against him despite Gürlek’s public threat. Özel said he would instead take the matter to court himself so that a judge could request official land registry records and determine who was telling the truth. He challenged ministries and land registry authorities to deny any of the property identification numbers he had publicized.
Gürlek is not only justice minister but also the former İstanbul chief public prosecutor who personally oversaw the sweeping legal crackdown on CHP-run municipalities. That crackdown has resulted in 15 opposition mayors being jailed on corruption or terrorism charges that rights groups say are politically motivated.
Gürlek led the investigation that resulted in İmamoğlu’s March 2025 arrest on the day he was named the CHP’s presidential candidate. İmamoğlu, widely regarded as Erdoğan’s strongest rival, faces a potential sentence of up to 2,430 years in prison across multiple cases.
The CHP filed a criminal complaint against Gürlek over the asset allegations, accusing him of corruption and illicit enrichment. The party argues that a prosecutor who built corruption cases against opposition mayors while allegedly accumulating unexplained wealth himself undermines the credibility of those prosecutions.
On Tuesday three land registry officials were suspended and one land registry technician was detained after authorities traced repeated searches of Justice Minister Gürlek’s property records at different registry offices, as investigators allege that at least some of the queried information was then shared with the CHP.
Gürlek was appointed İstanbul chief public prosecutor in October 2024 despite having no prior experience as a prosecutor. He had served as deputy justice minister from 2022 to 2024 before taking the prosecutorial post. He was promoted to justice minister in February 2026, shortly after completing the İmamoğlu investigation, putting him in charge of the judicial system he had used to prosecute the opposition.