Recep Erdogan says US verdict against Turkish citizen is part of ‘plot’
Istanbul — On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised the conviction in the US of a top Turkish banker in a trial on Iran sanctions-busting, saying it was part of a "chain" of plots against his nation. "What we are seeing in the US is a chain of serious plots," Erdogan told reporters at Istanbul airport after the conviction of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, deputy chief executive of Turkish lender Halkbank. "If this is the US understanding of justice then the world is doomed. There can be no such understanding of justice." The trial, which rested on the testimony of Turkish-Iranian businessperson Reza Zarrab, a suspect turned prosecution witness, implicated former Turkish ministers and even Erdogan in the Iranian sanctions-busting scheme. But Erdogan said the case was "full of contradictions". He also took aim at the US for hosting the Pennsylvania-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey accuses of being behind the failed 2016 coup and also of influencing prosecut...
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