ISTANBUL: After his third night in custody, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was to appear before prosecutors on Saturday, just hours after hundreds of thousands hit the streets across Turkiye in a massive show of defiance.

It was the third straight night that protesters had rallied against the arrest of Imamoglu — the biggest political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose arrest early Wednesday sparked Turkiye’s biggest street protests in more than a decade.

After an evening of clashes in Istanbul, Ankara and the western city of Izmir between protesters and riot police, who fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse them, the security forces arrested 97 people, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.

And media reports said police had raided scores of homes overnight, although there was no immediate confirmation of the number detained.

The 53-year-old mayor, who was arrested just days before the CHP was to name him their candidate for the 2028 presidential race, was speaking to police on Saturday morning in connection with the “terror” probe, party sources told AFP.

He was then expected to appear before prosecutors at Caglayan courthouse at 1800 GMT to be questioned in both the graft and the terror probes, they said.

Already named in a growing list of legal probes, Imamoglu — who was resoundingly re-elected last year — has been accused alongside six others of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation” — namely the banned Kurdish group PKK.

He is also under investigation for “bribery, extortion, corruption, aggravated fraud, and illegally obtaining personal data for profit as part of a criminal organisation” along with 99 other suspects.

Quizzed for six hours

He was questioned by police for six hours Friday about the graft allegations, the party said.

“Mr Imamoglu denies all the charges against him,” one of his lawyers, Mehmet Pehlivan said.

“The detention was aimed at undermining Mr Imamoglu’s reputation in the eyes of society,” he wrote on X early on Saturday, saying both probes were “based on untrue allegations” and “a violation of the right to a fair trial”.

Demonstrators across the country were due to rally again on Saturday night.

In a message on X sent via his lawyers, Imamoglu said he was “honoured and proud” of the demonstrators who hit the streets in more than 50 of Turkiye’s 81 provinces, saying they were “protecting our republic, our democracy, the future of a just Turkiye, and the will of our nation”.

Addressing the crowds outside City Hall in Istanbul on Friday night, Ozgur Ozel, who heads the main opposition CHP, said 300,000 people had joined the demonstration in defiance of a protest ban and a sharp warning from Erdogan that Turkiye would not tolerate “street terror”.

As he spoke, the crowd cheered and applauded, waving flags and banners and chanting slogans like: “Don’t stay silent or it will be you next”.

The move against Imamoglu has hurt the Turkish lira and financial markets, with the stock exchange’s BIST 100 index closing down nearly eight percent on Friday.