Trial of former Turkish minister on corruption charges abroad shameful: CHP head

ANKARA

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Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said a person who had once served as a minister in Turkey being tried on corruption charges in another country was shameful, in remarks on the latest indictment against former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan and three others accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran. 

U.S. prosecutors had broadened an investigation into Turkish-Iranian millionaire Reza Zarrab, filing a new indictment charging Çağlayan, former Halkbank general manager Hakan Aslan and other two with “conspiring to use the U.S. financial system to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions on behalf of the Government of Iran and other Iranian entities, which were barred by United States sanctions.”

 

A U.S. court had later ordered arrest warrants for Çağlayan and Arslan.

“If Zafer Çağlayan goes to the U.S., he will be tried. He (President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan) says ‘Peculiar smells coming against us.’ We have repeatedly said ‘Do not do it.’ A person who had served as a minister in the Republic of Turkey being tried on corruption in another country is shameful,” Kılıçdaroğlu said on Sept. 9 speaking at a meeting over his party’s 94th foundation anniversary in Ankara.

President Erdoğan had claimed there were “malicious intentions” behind the indictment.