Erdogan was top target of Iran sanctions busting probe fled Turkish policeman testifies

Erdogan was top target of Iran sanctions busting probe fled Turkish policeman testifies
Fled policeman Huseyin Korkmaz told the court that the original Turkish investigation into the sanctions-busting scheme expanded to include a group of people topped by Turkey's President Erdogan, pictured.
By bne IntelliNews December 12, 2017

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the “number one” target of a bribery and money laundering probe in Turkey that, prior to a US investigation, explored hidden payments to Iran that dodged sanctions, a former Istanbul police officer testified in a New York federal court.

Huseyin Korkmaz, 30, related how the investigation first focused on the scheme operated by Turkish-Iranian gold and currency trader Reza Zarrab, but then expanded to include dozens of other people. Erdogan was the top target in a group that also included former economy minister Mehmet Zafer Caglayan and ex-CEO of state-owned bank Turkiye Bank Halkasi (Halkbank) Suleyman Aslan.

Korkmaz said he fled Turkey after he was reassigned from the case to work as a guard on a bridge and then jailed for a year after Erdogan responded angrily to the investigation and it was shut down. Korkmaz, who said he hired a smuggler to get him out of the country with a cache of investigative materials which he turned over to American law enforcement officials who helped bring him to the US, told the court: “I left the country I dearly loved.”

Erdogan, who has not been accused by prosecutors of any wrongdoing, claimed the Turkish investigation was part of a coup plot devised by Gulenist network opponents. The Turkish president, who unsuccessfully tried to get both the Obama and Trump administrations to end the US probe, has lately said the US trial is a result of the American judiciary being infiltrated by Gulenists, led by self-exiled preacher Fetullah Gulen who lives in rural Pennsylvania. Turkey wants Gulen extradited but Washington has not adhered to the request. He denies being involved in any coup plots against Erdogan.

The Turkish investigation ended after the arrest of Zarrab—who has pleaded guity to charges in the case and is giving evidence for the prosecution in return for leniency—in Turkey in December 2013 and a raid on the home of Aslan, which discovered millions of dollars in cash kept in shoe boxes, the court heard. Photos of the cash recovered from the raid were shown to the jury in Manhattan federal court, Bloomberg reported.

As part of a gold trading scheme aimed at enabling Iran to dodge sanctions and access revenue earned on oil and gas sales to Turkey, some $1bn is said to have illicitly flowed through New York banks.

Zarrab spent seven days testifying against former Halkbank deputy chief executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the lone defendant in the case because the US has been unable to arrest the other eight indicted, including Aslan and Caglayan. Atilla has pleaded not guilty, while Caglayan and Halkbank have previously made public statements denying they were involved in any wrongdoing claimed by investigators. Zarrab has also told the jury that Erdogan personally ordered two Turkish banks be cut in on the laundering scheme, and that as prime minister he ordered the restarting of Zarrab's scheme after the Turkish investigation was halted. Erdogan was PM until late August 2014, when he became president.

Prosecutors also showed jurors surveillance photographs in which Korkmaz said bribery payments were being made, including one depicting a man identified as Zarrab’s courier outside the office of a charitable foundation founded by Erdogan, Bloomberg added.

On December 1, Istanbul prosecutors ordered the seizure of assets of Zarrab, 34, who previously lived in Istanbul with his pop star wife but was grabbed by US law officers when he came to the US for a DisneyWorld holiday with his family in Florida. Assets of Zarrab's family were also seized on the basis that an investigation had been launched against the trader. Turkish media outlets The media outlets quoted Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim as saying that his hope was that Zarrab will "turn back from his mistake" in co-operating with US prosecutors.

News

Dismiss