Turkish prosecutors are seeking a sentence of up to 402 years for the jailed mayor of Bursa, Turkey’s fourth-largest city, in an indictment accusing him of leading a criminal organization and taking bribes in connection with zoning and construction projects, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Mayor Mustafa Bozbey, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), had been taken into custody on March 31 in a probe led by the Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. After lengthy questioning, he was arrested on April 4, while some of his family members who were among the detainees, including his wife and daughter, were released under judicial supervision.
The 862-page indictment, drafted by the Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and accepted by the Bursa 2nd High Criminal Court, names 63 defendants, 37 of them in pretrial detention, including Bozbey.
Prosecutors accuse Bozbey of “establishing and leading a criminal organization,” “taking bribes,” “causing zoning violations” and “unlawfully assuming a public office” over alleged irregularities in construction projects in Bursa’s Nilüfer district, recommending a prison sentence of up to 402 years.
The indictment also seeks up to 946 years in prison for Turgay Erdem, a former Nilüfer mayor whom prosecutors accuse of leading a separate criminal organization. The remaining 61 defendants face prison terms of varying lengths.
Bozbey, who was elected mayor of Bursa in the March 2024 local elections, was removed from office by the Interior Ministry as a temporary measure after his arrest.
The indictment claims that during Bozbey’s tenure as mayor of Bursa’s Nilüfer district, construction companies were allowed to exceed legally permitted building limits in return for bribes, enabling them to obtain illicit gains.
Prosecutors claim Bozbey gave Erdem, then a deputy mayor in Nilüfer, what is known as “single-signature” authority in violation of rules and unlawfully appointed him as a “coordinator deputy mayor,” a title the indictment says does not exist in municipal law. The indictment alleges that Bozbey used this arrangement to conceal his own role and avoid detection.
The indictment also claims that front companies were established through third parties on Bozbey’s instructions, that real estate transfers of unclear origin were made to those companies and that proceeds allegedly obtained through criminal activity were transferred through company accounts to members of Bozbey’s family.
The indictment says the alleged organization’s activities continued after 2019, when Bozbey left office as mayor of Bursa’s Nilüfer district.
Bozbey and the CHP have condemned the broader wave of investigations targeting opposition municipalities as politically motivated.
Some opposition figures and government critics have alleged that the case against Bozbey is linked to pressure on opposition mayors to switch to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), portraying the indictment as a consequence of his refusal to defect.
The case comes amid a broader crackdown on CHP-run municipalities that began after the party’s strong showing in the March 2024 local elections, when it won many of Turkey’s largest cities and dealt the AKP its worst electoral defeat in years.
The investigations targeting the CHP have so far led to the arrest of more than 20 mayors and hundreds of municipal officials.
There has also been a series of defections by mayors elected from the CHP or other opposition parties after the 2024 local elections. Last month Afyonkarahisar Mayor Burcu Köksal, who was elected from the CHP in 2024, joined the AKP at a ceremony in Ankara where Erdoğan pinned an AKP badge on her. Köksal’s move gave the ruling party control of another municipality that voters had handed to the opposition.
At least 14 mayors elected from the CHP had joined the AKP before Köksal’s move, including Aydın Metropolitan Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu, one of the most prominent local government figures in western Turkey, along with district and town mayors from Aydın, Gaziantep, Yalova, Konya, Ardahan, Antalya, Şırnak, Çorum and Niğde.
The defections have unfolded alongside a crackdown on CHP-run municipalities that intensified after the March 2025 jailing of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival.
Rights groups and opposition politicians say the judiciary has been used to weaken the CHP through criminal investigations, detentions, arrests and removals of elected mayors, while the government insists the courts act independently.
The CHP says investigations targeting its municipalities are politically motivated and aimed at rolling back the opposition’s local election gains.