Turkish Despot Erdogan Implicated in Plot to Launder Money for Ayatollahs in Iran

Shariah Finance Watch ^ | 30 Nov 17 | Christopher Holton

[LSUfan]

In stunning testimony in a blockbuster legal case in New York on money laundering and alleged violations of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the key figure in the trial today declared that Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan was up to his ears in the scheme.

This revelation confirms two things that we have suspected for a long time:

1. Erdogan is no ally of the U.S. or the West in general;

2. Erdogan’s sympathies lie with the Islamic world to the point that he will aid and abet outright Jihadist regimes and organizations who target his NATO allies.

[AdmSmith]

In Erdogans’s head:

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusogolu on Saturday alleged that followers of a US-based cleric’s movement that opposes Ankara government had infiltrated into American diplomatic missions, judiciary, and the Congress.

“FETO has infiltrated into US diplomatic mission, and the American judiciary and the Congress, everywhere, all the institutions; one way or another, legally or illegally. We tell this to Americans’ face. We are not talking behind them,” Cavusoglu said, according to state media.

The acronym “FETO” for stands for “Fethullahist Terror Organization,” a Turkish government designation for the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen’s movement which calls itself “Hizmet,” or the Service

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/0041e037-a8d6-4f30-b356-57b554b2a50d

[AdmSmith]

Courts in the United States cannot put Turkey on trial, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, in reference to the case of a Turkish bank executive who has been charged with evading US sanctions on Iran.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20171203-turkeys-erdogan-says-us-courts-cannot-put-turkey-on-trial/

[AdmSmith]

Kilicdaroglu told the parliament yesterday, “We have all the records of this company. We also have all the documents of the financial transactions … we also have bank receipts.” Turkey’s version of C-SPAN, state broadcaster TRT, abruptly cut the transmission.

CHP lawmakers called for Erdogan to step down.

Erdogan has denied any wrongdoing, accusing Kilicdaroglu and his party of “treason” and threatening to retaliate. “If you strike me, be prepared to be struck back,” he thundered on Tuesday. The courts apparently took their cue, while Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) quashed an opposition motion to investigate offshore accounts. Pro-Erdogan newspapers chimed in with reports that FETO operators, who had fed him false reports about Erdogan, had duped Kilicdaroglu.

Nicholas Danforth, a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center who specializes in Turkish affairs, observed that the Turkish government’s propaganda machine is now bent on conflating Zarrab’s testimony with Kilicdaroglu’s accusations against the Erdogan family as part of the alleged Western plot against Turkey. “There is a simultaneous effort to ignore and discredit the Zarrab case, while invoking it as needed to accuse Kilicdaroglu of acting on behalf of foreign powers,” Danforth told Al-Monitor. “My fear is that if [the corruption claim] pushes him [Erdogan] to intensify his crackdown on domestic opposition — as suggested by the rhetoric and charges against Kilicdaroglu — it could further erode his veneer of democratic legitimacy and make an already volatile situation worse.”

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/11/turkey-defensive-reza-zarrab-testifies.html

[TigerLikesRooster]

Any chance of U.S. imposing financial sanction on his family?

[AdmSmith]

I guess that https://www.treasury.gov/about/organizational-structure/offices/Pages/Office-of-Foreign-Assets-Control.aspx will start with persons and banks close to him.

[SunkenCiv]

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan meet in Sochi, Russia November 22, 2017. (photo credit: SPUTNIK/MIKHAIL METZEL/KREMLIN VIA REUTERS)