The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has granted "priority" status to an application challenging the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, his legal team announced on Dec. 26.
“The ECHR's decision to give priority to this case is rare among applications made from Türkiye to date,” Mehmet Pehlivan, İmamoğlu’s jailed lawyer, said in a post on X.
The Court's priority policy allows the tribunal to bypass chronological order and speed up the processing and adjudication of cases it deems "the most important, serious and urgent."
İmamoğlu, a key figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has been held in pretrial detention since March 23 as part of a corruption investigation that includes over 400 suspects.
The ousted mayor faces a sentence of up to 2,352 years in prison. Prosecutors have characterized him in a nearly 4,000-page indictment as the "founder and leader of a criminal organization."
The legal proceedings are set to begin on March 9 at the Istanbul 40th Heavy Penal Court.
İmamoğlu was detained on the same day he was declared the CHP’s presidential candidate through a public primary. The party maintains that the probe is politically motivated.
