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Some of the confidential documents added in the file of the Rıza Zarrab case, which continues in the Federal Court of the Southern District of New York, will be released publicly, according to VoA Turkish.
In a letter dated 1 November, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman, asked the defence and prosecution if they objected to the lifting of the confidentiality order for some confidential documents in the case file. The parties responded to Judge Berman’s letter.
Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, yesterday stated in his reply addressed to Judge Berman that the defence and prosecution did not oppose the disclosure of some documents in the file that have a confidentiality order, if the judge deemed it necessary.
There almost 50 files that are subjected to confidentiality clauses in the Rıza Zarrab case in New York, in which nine defendants, including Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank, are on trial.
Having been accused of engaging in hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions on behalf of the Iranian government, money laundering and bank fraud, Zarrab was arrested by US officials in 2016.
As he later agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors, he has become a key witness in the New York trial that led to the arrest of Hakan Attila, the then deputy general manager of Halkbank.
Judge Berman in a 1 October order said that Halkbank’s recusal motion, (a legal attempt to remove the judge) had no substantive merit and refused to dismiss a six-count criminal case accusing Halkbank of helping Iran evade more than $20 billion in U.S. economic sanctions.
During his testimony in New York in December 2017, Zarrab implicated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the money laundering scheme.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that Zarrab was released on bail in 2018 following an application.
