An Istanbul court has ordered the release of suspended Üsküdar Mayor Sinem Dedetaş from prison, placing her under house arrest.
An Istanbul court has ordered the release of Sinem Dedetaş, the suspended mayor of Üsküdar who was jailed pending trial, under house arrest, her lawyer announced on Oct. 29.
“Following our application for her release, a decision was made to release her from prison under judicial control in the form of house arrest,” lawyer Akın Atalay said in a social media post.
Dedetaş, a member of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) who served as mayor of Istanbul’s Üsküdar district, had been in pretrial detention since July 31 on bribery and corruption charges.
Hours before news of her release emerged, Dedetaş marked the 103rd anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic in a social media post shared through her lawyer.
“On this holiday, I am celebrating our Republic, our most precious legacy, alone in a cell, deprived of my freedom for 90 days and perhaps feeling more deeply than ever before the value of being free, for the first time,” she wrote in a post on X on Oct. 29.
Dedetaş was suspended from office following her arrest, prompting the Üsküdar municipal council to hold a series of votes to elect an acting mayor.
In the latest vote, held on Oct. 20, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate Muhammed Emin Sarıoğlu was elected to the post. Another AKP candidate, Dündar Ziya Gültekin, had previously been elected acting mayor, but the vote had to be repeated after he died in a traffic accident several weeks later.
As a result of the successive municipal council votes following Dedetaş’s arrest, control of the district administration shifted from the CHP to the AKP.
Dedetaş will need to be acquitted of the charges against her and subsequently reinstated by the Interior Ministry to return to office.
Opposition mayors have faced a series of legal proceedings over corruption allegations over the past year, with several mayors and senior municipal officials arrest, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
