US trial of Turkish banker political: Turkish deputy PM

By Sorwar Alam

ANKARA

The U.S. prison sentence given to a Turkish banker lacks any legal foundation, said Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag on Thursday, blasting it as a politically motivated decision.

The District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday sentenced former Halkbank Deputy CEO Mehmet Hakan Atilla to 32 months in prison for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.

“This trail was not legal but political,” Bozdag, a government spokesman, said in a series of tweets, stating that the court decision came as the result of a “fictitious trial”.

“The court violated the law, did not hold a fair trial; just completed the mandatory procedure for declaring a pre-determined decision,” he added.

He went on to say that trail was “a game that played and staged by the CIA, the FBI, FETO [Fetullah Terrorist Organization] and the U.S. judiciary.”

FETO and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen are behind the July 15, 2016 defeated coup, which martyred 250 people and injured 2,200, as well as a wide-ranging conspiracy in the military, police, and judiciary.

Bozdag also said the New York court relied on forged evidence and false statements of members of FETO.

“No one can bring Turkey to heel or influence Ankara with conspiracy cases,” said Bozdag.