ISTANBUL: Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the main rival of Turkiye`s President Tayyip Erdogan, appeared before a court on Friday for the first time since his high-profile arrest last month, over earlier and separate accusations of insulting a prosecutor.

The hearing was held inside a courthouse-prison complex in Istanbul`s Silivri district where Imamoglu is currently being detained. It centres onchargesthatheinsulted and threatened the chief Istanbulprosecutor.

Imamoglu denied the accusations in court. `I am here because I won three elections in Istanbul a city someone once called `my beloved Istanbul`, a city about which they said `who wins Istanbul wins Turkiye`, and a city they thought they owned,` he said, in an apparent reference to past remarks made by Erdogan and his ruling AK Party. `I am here because I am the president in the hearts of 86 million people,` he said, referring to the nation`s population.

The mayor was jailed last month pending trial over unrelated charges of corruption and aiding aterrorist group, a move that triggered mass protests, a sharp selloff in Turkish assets and broad accusations of a politicised judiciary.

In Friday`s hearing, prosecutorssoughtaprison sentence of up to seven years and four months over remarks Imamoglu made earlier this year criticising Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Akin Gurlek.

The indictment, filed by the terror crimes unit of the chief prosecutor`s office, accuses him of attempting to intimidate Gurlek. The court later scheduled the next hearing in the case for June 16.

Imamoglu, who was chosen as the main opposition Republican People`s Party`s (CHP) future presidential candidate, has denied wrongdoing in all the cases against him, saying they are politically motivated.

The CHP has said the arrests of numerous CHP mayors since late last year are part of a broader campaigntoneutraliseelected opposition officials ahead of any future elections.

The government has rejected those claims and says the judiciary is independent.-Reuters