Nationalist politician Cem Uzan, leader of the minor Youth Party, was taken into police custody on 13 November 2004 after reportedly entering a confiscated family ranch in the northwestern province of Sakarya. Twenty-two companions, said to include armed bodyguards, were detained alongside him. All were released on bail after giving statements to a local prosecutor; no charges had been confirmed at the time.
The arrest was the latest episode in Uzan's conflict with the government, which had been seizing family assets since 2003. Authorities first took control of two power utilities, then moved on to Imar Bank, where investigators found a deficit running to several billion dollars. To recover roughly $5.6 billion owed to depositors, the state seized all 219 Uzan-linked companies, among them Telsim, at that point Türkiye's second-largest mobile operator.
Uzan insisted the campaign was politically driven. His party had once been considered a challenger to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party but lost momentum after winning no parliamentary seats in the November 2002 elections. His father and brother, both fugitives at the time, were among 17 people indicted on fraud and embezzlement charges in connection with the Imar Bank case.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in November 2004, in its own words.