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2017-12-03 The Grand Turk
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A Plot of Gold for Erdogan
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[RUDAW.NET] This week Iranian-Ottoman Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab went on trial in the United States for a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions between 2010 and 2015. Along with Ottoman Turkish Halk Bank president Mehmet Hakan Atilla, Mr. Zarrab allegedly used Iranian funds and oil to buy gold in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, then sold the gold in Dubai and forwarded the returns back to Tehran. As part of the operation, Mr. Zarrab bribed top Ottoman Turkish officials, including Turkey’s finance minister and other members of the government’s cabinet.
In a plea bargain to reduce his sentence, Mr. Zarrab agreed to cooperate with American prosecutors, and his resulting testimony is producing interesting revelations. On Thursday, November 30, Mr. Zarrab testified that Ottoman Turkish President Erdogan (who was Prime Minister at the time) personally ordered the scheme to help Iran evade American sanctions and enrich the coffers of Turkey and its officials in the process.
According to the BBC, Mr. Zarrab "said that he was told in 2012 by the then economy minister that Mr Erdogan...had instructed Ottoman Turkish banks to participate in the multi-million dollar scheme" and that "...he paid Zafer Caglayan, then Turkey's economy minister, bribes amounting to more than 50m euros ($59m; £44m) to facilitate deals with Iran."
President Erdogan and other Ottoman Turkish government officials, including former finance minister Caglayan and former Halk Bank president Atilla (who is pleading "not guilty" in the trial) denied the allegations.
No, no! Certainly not!
The Ottoman Turkish government and its controlled media even went further than denying the allegations, accusing the American judge in the case of having links with Fethullah Gülen
 ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
(the reclusive Pennsylvania-based Ottoman Turkish holy man that the Erdogan government insists was behind the July 2016 coup attempt).
Government controlled newspapers in Turkey either sidestepped the substance of the trial in New York, choosing instead to focus on things such as Mr. Zarrab’s fashion preferences for the court room ("casual chic" on Thursday, apparently), or they carried reports such as this one from Daily Sabah:
Officials in Turkey have argued that the case has been turned into a political move against Ankara. Turkey's claims were proved after the judge overseeing the Zarrab case was linked to the Gulenist Terror Group (FETÖ), led by runaway preacher Fetullah Gulen, who has lived in a self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. The Ottoman Turkish government has accused the group of exploiting the case by illegally obtaining and fabricating evidence, including wiretap records done by now-sacked FETÖ-linked coppers. Ankara says the so-called "evidence" was illegal for a court to use under U.S. law, which requires that any piece of evidence must be obtained through legal means.
Perhaps in another attempt to distract the Ottoman Turkish public from serious allegations of bribery amongst Turkey’s top government officials, prosecutors in Ankara this week also put out an arrest warrant for Graham Fuller, a former vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, for "attempting to overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey" and "obtaining state information that must be kept secret for political and military espionage purposes," among other charges. Mr. Fuller now joins fellow American academic Henry Barkey, who had an arrest warrant put out for him on similar charges a few months ago.
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Posted by Fred 2017-12-03 00:00||
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File under: Sublime Porte
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