Yavaş is accused by pro-government daily Sabah and AKP officials of having abused his position as a lawyer by filing duplicate court claims to recover a $600,000 fee due to his client, harassing the complainant, businessman Necmettin Keskin, to recover the fee, and using a false signature in a legal document.
Yavaş released a press statement on Tuesday, denying the allegations and saying he was the real victim in the decade-old case.
The Ankara mayor said that he was left with a legal document that contained a fake signature after businessman Keskin fled.
"There is no verdict by the Supreme Court against me. I am the real victim here," Yavaş said, adding, that he will file a criminal complaint against pro-government outlets and AKP’s Ankara candidate Mehmet Özhaseki and AKP spokesperson Ömer Çelik, both of whom have targeted Yavaş.
The allegations against the opposition candidate, who will be running for mayor of the capital Ankara for a third time, arrive as Turkey prepares for local elections on March 31. Pro-government Hürriyet newspaper on Tuesday published and then removed the response by Yavaş, Halk TV said.
While Hürriyet kept the Ankara mayor hopeful’s statements online for two hours, it said, other newspapers of the pro-government Demirören Group, such as Milliyet and Posta, chose not to publish Yavaş’s statements at all.
In the last few days, top-selling Turkish newspaper Sabah has attacked Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Mansur Yavaş placing words like “fake” and “abuse of office” in large print next to his face on the front page.