US appeals court upholds former Halkbank manager's sentence
Atilla was appointed as the head of İstanbul stock market last year. (Photo: AA/File)
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The US Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit has upheld the 32-month prison sentence of Hakan Atilla, the former deputy general manager of Halkbank.
Attila was convicted by the New York Southern District Court for facilitating violations of the sanctions against Iran. His attorneys had appealed the verdict, stating that judge Richard M. Berman misinformed the jury about the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), there was not sufficient evidence for Atilla's conviction, and the law against defrauding the US could not be enforced against him.
Although the appeals court admitted that the judge "partly" misinformed the jury, it said it was a "harmless" mistake.
"We conclude that sufficient evidence existed to support the jury's verdict," it said, the Courthouse News Service reported. "The evidence — which included wiretapped conversations, witness testimony (including that of a cooperating witness and high-ranking US government officials personally involved in the events described at trial), and hundreds of documentary exhibits — establishes that Atilla was a knowing participant in the sanctions evasion scheme that involved routing hundreds of millions of dollars through the US financial system."
Halkbank itself was also indicted last year for evading US sanctions. Its trial will start next year.
What happened?Reza Zarrab, a businessperson with dual citizenship of Iran and Turkey, was taken into custody at Miami Airport on March 19, 2016. He was remanded in custody on March 21. He was charged with violating sanctions against Iran, money laundering, "conspiracy against the US," and defrauding US banks. During Zarrab's trial, Turkey sent a diplomatic note to the US embassy, requesting information about the businessperson as it was not able to hear from Zarrab and was concerned about his life safety. As part of the same investigation, Hakan Atilla, the then deputy general manager of Halkbank, was detained at New York JFK Airport on March 29, 2017. He was also remanded in custody shortly after. The court combined the cases of Atilla and Zarrab in April 2017. In his first hearing on April 27, Zarrab facing up to 95 years of imprisonment denied the accusations of conspiring to evade US sanctions against Iran, money laundering and bank fraud. Facing a prison sentence of up to 90 years and a 50 million US dollars fine, Zarrab became a confessor in October 2017. He admitted that he used Halkbank to trade gold for natural gas. After Zarrab's confession, Attila remained the sole defendant in the trial. In September 2017, then Minister of Economy Zafer Çağlayan, former Halkbank General Director Süleyman Aslan, Halkbank Deputy General Director in Charge of International Operations Levent Balkan and Zarrab's worker Abdullah Happani were added as defendants. On October 26, Zarrab pleaded guilty and admitted that he bribed then Minister of Economy Zafer Çağlayan and explained the business traffic he followed to evade sanctions. On January 3, 2018, jury members found Atilla guilty of five of six charges. He was sentenced to 32 months in prison on May 16, 2018. After completing his sentence, Attila returned to Turkey on July 24, 2019. On October 15, 2019, US prosecutors charged Halkbank with six offenses: defraud the US, conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. In October 2019, he was appointed as the director-general of Borsa İstanbul stock exchange. |
(EKN/VK)