Monday, March 8th, 2021
Sentenced in the US
Head of the Istanbul Stock Exchange resigns
A Turkish banker is being tried in the United States for a controversial gold deal with Iran. After his deportation, he was appointed head of the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The US government regards this as a provocation.
The banker Hakan Atilla, convicted in the USA for violating the Iran sanctions, has resigned as director of the Istanbul Stock Exchange after around a year and a half. The state news agency Anadolu reports that the resignation was at his own request, citing a message from the stock exchange.
Atilla had been convicted in New York as a former deputy head of the Turkish Halkbank, among other things, for bank fraud and the conspiracy to launder money and circumvent sanctions against Iran. He received a 32-month sentence and was deported to Turkey in July 2019.
In October of the same year he was elected head of the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The trial of the banker had put a heavy strain on Washington-Ankara relations. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had sharply criticized the guilty verdict.
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