Istanbul mayor says ministry ignoring threats sent to him

Duvar English

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), on July 26 stated that the Interior Ministry ignores threats made against him.

“For example, (Ufuk Akçekaya) threatened me. I reported it to the Ministry. They were not even interested,” İmamoğlu told Fatih Altaylı during a live program on Habertürk TV. 

Ufuk Akçekaya has recently been arrested for the murder of Nazmi Arıkan, who was a founder of a private educational institution and a physics teacher.

Arıkan and his driver were killed on July 13 in the northwestern province of Çanakkale.

The police arrested the alleged main suspect Akçekaya the day after the murder.

Akçekaya, who is the head of a local football club Tokatspor, has close affiliations with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials. 

On his Instagram account, he has photos together taken with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his son Bilal Erdoğan, Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın and several other AKP members.

Akçekaya previously threatened Istanbul Mayor İmamoğlu with the videos he posted on social media, sent messages of threats to him, and even went near his house, the daily Sözcü reported.

This prompted İmamoğlu to file criminal complaints twice against Akçekaya last year. 

İmamoğlu said during the live program that the Ministry ignored his complaints.

When asked about the criticism about being on vacation when Istanbul suffered from a flash flood earlier this month, İmamoğlu said that he was not a holiday lover.

“I have been on vacation for 20 days in total in the last three years. President Erdoğan had almost four times more vacation than me when he was the mayor," he said.

İmamoğlu said that his municipality invested 10.2 billion liras in infrastructure so that floods do not cause a problem in the megacity.

"Flood happened when I was on a three-day vacation. There was a flood in only one street in the whole city. There was no flooding anywhere else in Istanbul. Some 3,600 personnel were working on it," İmamoğlu added.