![\"IN](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/istanbul-chamber-of-commerce-yalcintas.jpg\" "\\"IN")
Members of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce met for the first time Thursday since the arrest of their president, Murat Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f, in a real estate bribery scandal that erupted last month. Converging on the chamber\u2019s headquarters, the members requested the release of their chairman even as a daily newspaper published a document that could implicate Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f.<\/p>\n
\u015eekip Avdagi\u00e7, ICOC deputy chairman, said the chamber \u201chas full trust\u201d in Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f. \u201cA group of our members visited him Wednesday. They observed that he is in good condition and that he believes in his innocence. We are sure that Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f will be [back among us] after proving his innocence in court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daily Taraf, meanwhile, published a story Thursday about a document that it claimed was a \u201csign of bribery\u201d of $2 million. According to Taraf, Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f and members of the Istanbul Word Trade Center signed a document on Nov. 14, 2008. According to the document, nearly 1.25 million Turkish Liras was allocated to lawyers as an \u201cadvance payment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disputed piece of land<\/p>\n
The bribery case involves retired and active lawyers and judges. The case involves a piece of land situated between the IWTC and the CNR Expo Center near the Atat\u00fcrk Airport. According to claims, IWTC allegedly bribed judges and lawyers to obtain a ruling against CNR Expo\u2019s claims to the land. The ICOC owns nearly 42 percent of IWTC.<\/p>\n
The Taraf story implied that the \u201clawyer money\u201d was to be allocated to distributing bribes to members of the judiciary.<\/p>\n
The document may have created a rift within the chamber, as was evident during a video presentation for journalists Thursday. When Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f appeared on the wide screen, only half of the audience applauded, while the other half remained silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe solidarity of members toward Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f is about to fall apart,\u201d a board member was heard telling another member by the H\u00fcrriyet Daily News & Economic Review after the press conference.<\/p>\n
ICOC\u2019s lawyers requested the release of Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f last week, but were rejected. \u201cWe will file the same request once more next week,\u201d Avdagi\u00e7 said.<\/p>\n
Businessman Zafer \u0130pek\u00e7i, meanwhile, castigated Rifat Hisarc\u0131kl\u0131o\u011flu, chairman of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges, or TOBB. Addressing the board, \u0130pek\u00e7i said Hisarc\u0131kl\u0131o\u011flu \u201ckeeps changing his tone while talking about the arrest of our chairman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noting that Sinan Ayg\u00fcn, the president of the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, was taken into custody in 2008 over claims about the ongoing Ergenekon case, \u0130pek\u00e7i said: \u201cHisarc\u0131kl\u0131o\u011flu displayed support for him at that time. Why does he not show his support for our chairman?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
G\u00d6KHAN KURTARAN ISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News Members of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce met for the first time Thursday since the arrest of their president, Murat Yal\u00e7\u0131nta\u015f, in a real estate bribery scandal that erupted last month. Converging on the chamber\u2019s headquarters, the members requested the release of their chairman even as a daily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":25483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846],"tags":[2644,2646,4242],"class_list":["post-25481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-istanbul-chamber-of-commerce","tag-murat-yalcintas","tag-sinan-aygun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}