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| File photo: Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab is shown in this court room sketch as he appears in Manhattan federal court in New York |
A Turkish-Iranian gold trader on Thursday told jurors in a New York federal court that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally authorized a transaction in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions.
Reza Zarrab is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors in the criminal trial of a Turkish bank executive accused of helping to launder money for Iran. At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Erdogan was Turkeyโs prime minister. Zarrab said he learned of Erdoganโs involvement from Zafer Caglayan, who was Turkeyโs economy minister.
Erdogan said earlier on Thursday that Turkey did not violate U.S. sanctions and โdid the right thingโ in dealing with Iran, CNN Turk reported. A spokesman for Erdoganโs government has called the case a โplot against Turkey.โ
Zarrab also said for the first time on Thursday that Turkeyโs Ziraat Bank and VakifBank were involved in the scheme. Ziraat denied the allegation. VakifBank could not immediately be reached for comment after business hours on Thursday.
The testimony came on the third day of the trial of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at Turkeyโs state-owned Halkbank , who has pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court.
U.S. prosecutors have charged nine people in the case, although only Zarrab, 34, and Atilla, 47, have been arrested by U.S. authorities. Prosecutors have said the defendants took part in a scheme from 2010 to 2015 that involved gold trades and fake purchases of food to give Iran access to international markets.
Zarrab, who began testifying on Wednesday morning, has told jurors that he helped Iran use funds deposited at Halkbank to buy gold, which was smuggled to Dubai and sold for cash.
Zarrab has said that Atilla helped design the transactions, along with Halkbankโs former general manager, Suleyman Aslan.
Zarrab said that he paid bribes worth more than $50 million to Caglayan to further scheme. He said he bribed Aslan as well, but never bribed Atilla.
Both Caglayan and Aslan were charged in the case. Turkeyโs government has previously said that Caglayan acted within Turkish and international law, and Halkbank has said all of its transactions complied with national and international regulations.
Zarrabโs testimony has focused on Halkbank and Turkey, but on Thursday, he said that he had tried to duplicate his scheme in China before Chinese banks shut him down.
โThe banks that realized this had something to do with Iran, they immediately stopped it,โ he said.
