Mehmet Hakan Atilla was arrested in 2017 after a witness said he helped organize a multi-billion dollar scheme to bypass US oil sanctions against Iran. The case had implicated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/O. Kose
Advertisement
A Turkish banker convicted of trying to help bypass US sanctions on Iranian oil has been released from prison in Philadelphia.
The US Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Mehmet Hakan Atilla had been released on Friday. Atilla's lawyer told the Agence France-Presse news agency that US immigration authorities were scheduled to deport him to Turkey.
The former executive of Turkish state lender Halkbank was sentenced to 32 months in prison in May 2018 on charges of bank fraud and conspiracy relating to a multi-billion dollar oil-for-gold scheme.
The case implicated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other senior political figures after a witness said Erdogan approved Halkbank's involvement in the scheme.
Erdogan has repeatedly denied involvement and accused his political opponents of trying to undermine him.
US sanctions and who they target
The US serves as a cornerstone of global trade and sometimes uses this position to punish rival nations. DW looks into key restrictions that Washington currently imposes on Iran, Cuba, Russia, North Korea and Syria.
Image: Imago
Iran
US sanctions on Iran target Tehran's trade in gold and precious metals, block the sales of passenger jets and restrict Iran's purchase of US dollars, among other punitive measures. The US has also blocked Iran's key oil sales in a further tranche of sanctions, which came into force in November 2018.
Impoverished North Korea is under a UN-backed embargo, but Washington also maintains an extensive regime of sanctions of its own. For example, the US strictly bans exporting weapons to the pariah state. Washington also uses its global clout to penalize non-US banks and companies that do business with Pyongyang.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/S. Marai
Syria
Washington trade restrictions prevent the regime of President Bashar Assad from exporting Syrian oil to the US. All property and assets of the Syrian government in the US have been frozen. Americans, wherever in the world they might be, are banned from "new investment" in the war-torn country, according to the US Treasury.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Esiri
Russia
The US blacklisted scores of high-ranking Russian officials and businessmen after the 2014 Crimea crisis, stopping them from traveling to the US and freezing their assets. The comprehensive sanctions list includes goods from the Russian-annexed region, such as wine. New sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the Skripal poisoning in March 2018 target sensitive national security and defense goods.
Image: Imago
Cuba
American tourists began flocking to Cuba immediately after the Obama administration initiated a thaw in relations in 2016. Under Donald Trump, however, the White House reimposed travel restrictions for US citizens, making it much harder for Americans to travel to the island. At least one Obama-era concession is still in place, however: it is still legal to bring Cuban cigars and rum to the US.
