17th May, 2018
Turkey sharply condemned a U.S. court decision to sentence a former Turkish state-run bank official to 32 months in prison, arguing the ruling was based on “fake evidence.”
“The court relying on forged evidence and false statements fabricated by the FETO members destroyed the reliability and credibility of the trial,’’ the Turkish Foreign Ministry said after Wednesday’s sentencing.
Report says the government blames Gulen for the 2016 failed military coup, but he denies charges.
Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a former high-ranking employee of Turkish state lender Halkbank, was handed down the sentence in a Manhattan court for his role in a billion-dollar oil-for-gold scheme to bypass U.S. sanctions on Iran.
“By convicting the representative of a foreign country’s public bank, the court in question has made an unprecedented decision regarding the application of U.S. sanctions regulations.
“This trial is not legal, it is political. No one can bring Turkey to its knees by means of conspiracy trials,’’ Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on his Twitter account.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said Atilla “is definitely innocent” in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday.
“If Hakan Atilla is going to be declared a criminal, that would be almost equivalent to declaring the Turkish Republic a criminal,’’ Erdogan said.