Çaykara was arrested on the basis of intuition
Köksal, the lawyer for Utku Caner Çaykara, who is in custody in connection with the Aziz İhsan Aktaş case, said, “Our client was arrested on the basis of intuition. This is a first in Turkey.”
The trial involving 200 defendants, which was launched on the grounds that the “criminal organisation for profit” allegedly led by Aziz İhsan Aktaş organised tenders by bribing certain mayors, continued yesterday. Defence lawyers presented their arguments during the hearing.
Tuğçe Duygu Köksal, the lawyer for Utku Caner Çaykara, the detained Mayor of Avcılar, who is defending himself in the ‘Aziz İhsan Aktaş criminal organisation’ case, stated: "Our client was detained on the basis of mere suspicion. This is a first in Turkey. My client is serving a sentence for a crime he did not commit. This is now a form of punishment. Are we hopeless, then? No, we are not,‘ she said.
Berfin Arslan, the lawyer for Avcılar Mayor Utku Caner Çaykara, who also presented the defence at the hearing, added: ’All the allegations have been refuted; the only remaining claim is regarding 16 vehicles. It was alleged that my client requested 16 vehicles from Aziz İhsan Aktaş’s associates to use during the election. It has emerged from the PTS (Vehicle Tracking System) records that these vehicles were already being held in the electoral district and were in use at the time. In other words, it has been established that they were not provided specifically for Utku Caner Çaykara. These are the vehicles bearing the photographs of the former mayor. At that time, Utku Caner Çaykara was not even a candidate. However, this was not included in the file because it was in his favour. “There is also a case of evidence being suppressed here, and an apology is required. The evidence was suppressed by the judiciary,” he stated.
NO SINGLE STATEMENT
Meanwhile, the 29th hearing of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) case, in which 414 people, including Ekrem İmamoğlu, are on trial—92 of whom are in custody—was also held yesterday. Adem Soytekin, the defendant who had confessed and completed his defence the previous day, requested the right to make a supplementary defence. The presiding judge stated that Soytekin had been granted the right to a supplementary defence. The hearing concluded with the completion of the statements by Soytekin’s defence lawyers. The hearing began with the defence presented by Ahmet Burak Bilgin, the lawyer for the confessing defendant Adem Soytekin. Ahmet Burak Bilgin stated that his client had participated in two of the 43 tenders organised by KİPTAŞ after Ekrem İmamoğlu became mayor.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Çaykara’yı sezgiye göre tutukladılar, published in BirGün newspaper on April 30, 2026.
