Reza Zarrab, the Turkish currency trader who admitted helping Iran move billions of dollars in violation of US financial sanctions, said in a recorded jailhouse conversation that he needed to lie about his own crimes to get a reduced sentence, according to a summary of his words.
LETTER CHANGED THE COURT’S AGENDA
Zarrab was brought to the court to testifiy against a bank manager at Turkey’s state-run Halkbank, Mehmet Hakan Atilla. But the letter was given to the judge Bergman by Atilla’s lawyers has changed the court’s agenda completely.
According to the article of Adam Klasfeld on Courthouse News; Atilla’s attorneys told Berman they belatedly received audio of Zarrab’s jailhouse conversations that “you have to lie to secure release.”
“YOU NEED TO ADMIT THE CRIMES YOU HAVEN’T COMMITTED”
According to the letter, in one of the phone conversations, dated September,2016, Zarrab explicitly discusses the perceived need, when incarcerated in the US, to lie “in order to get out of jail or get reduced sentence” Thus, the summery continues, “you need to admit the crimes you haven’t committed.”