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Turkey, US Battle over Extradition of Fugitive Businessman

Security officers stand guard outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, US, December 2, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
Security officers stand guard outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, US, December 2, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
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Turkey, US Battle over Extradition of Fugitive Businessman

Security officers stand guard outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, US, December 2, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
Security officers stand guard outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, US, December 2, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

A fugitive Turkish businessman who wants to return home to avoid US prosecution is due to appear in an Austrian court on Monday carrying secrets with potential geopolitical ramifications.

The list of scandals implicating businessman Sezgin Baran Korkmaz is long, stretching back to the early months of former US President Donald Trump’s administration.

It also involves a cast of colorful cohorts, including two polygamist sectarians in Utah, Jacob and Isaiah Kingston, and a California-based fuel company owner named in US documents as Levon Termendzhyan.

US prosecutors allege that Korkmaz laundered more than $133 million in fraud proceeds through bank accounts that he controlled in Turkey and Luxembourg. They accuse him and accomplices of using the money to buy the Turkish airline Borajet, hotels in Turkey and Switzerland, a yacht called the Queen Anne, and a villa and apartment overlooking the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

The superceding indictment, unsealed last month, charged Korkmaz with one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding.

He was arrested on June 19 when Austria acted on an international arrest notice and is due to appear in court on Monday, his lawyer said on Twitter. Reuters reported.

American prosecutors want him tried in the US. Speaking from jail to a Turkish reporter, Korkmaz said he would rather face justice at home, where he is also wanted for money laundering and fraud. The businessman has denied the claims against him.

US officials know the likelihood of Ankara extraditing Korkmaz should he be sent back to Turkey is low.

A large part of the reason lies in Washington’s refusal to hand over a US-based Turkish cleric President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes plotted a failed coup against him in 2016.

A protracted legal battle could add to strains in US-Turkish relations, which began to sour after Erdogan survived the attempted putsch.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that Korkmaz played a role in Ankara’s efforts to curry favor with Trump in his first years in the White House.

The investigative group also alleged in March that Korkmaz facilitated a 2018 trip for Americans linked to Trump who sought to secure detained US pastor Andrew Brunson’s release from Turkey.

The pastor’s fate became a major issue for Trump, who thrust him to the fore of US-Turkish relations until Brunson’s eventual release in late 2018.

Analysts note that Korkmaz’s case comes just as Erdogan — facing sagging domestic approval numbers — is trying to iron out diplomatic problems so that he can secure foreign investment and boost economic growth.

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France, UK, US and Israeli Leaders Slam Settlers' Attack on West Bank Village

The Palestinian village of Burqa is seen as an Israeli flag is placed in the Jewish West Bank outpost of Homesh, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
The Palestinian village of Burqa is seen as an Israeli flag is placed in the Jewish West Bank outpost of Homesh, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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France, UK, US and Israeli Leaders Slam Settlers' Attack on West Bank Village

The Palestinian village of Burqa is seen as an Israeli flag is placed in the Jewish West Bank outpost of Homesh, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
The Palestinian village of Burqa is seen as an Israeli flag is placed in the Jewish West Bank outpost of Homesh, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said on Friday that he condemned an attack by Israeli settlers on a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank.

"We condemn this situation," said Sejourne, speaking alongside his British counterpart David Lammy at a news conference in Jerusalem.

For his part, British foreign minister David Lammy said on Friday the UK strongly condemns the attacks by the Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
"The scenes overnight, of the burning and the torching of buildings, of the Molotov cocktails thrown at cars, of the widespread rampage and chasing of people from their homes, is abhorrent, and I condemn it in the strongest of terms," Lammy said at a press conference in Israel.

Also, Israeli leaders on Friday roundly condemned the deadly settler rampage in a rare Israeli denunciation of the settler violence, which started growing more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
The settler riot in the village of Jit, near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, killed one Palestinian and badly injured others late Thursday, Palestinian health officials said. Residents interviewed by The Associated Press said at least a hundred masked settlers entered the village, shot live ammunition at Palestinians, burned homes and cars and damaged water tankers. Video showed flames engulfing the small village, which residents said was left to defend itself without military help for two hours.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he took the riots “seriously” and that Israelis who carried out criminal acts would be prosecuted. He issued what appeared to be a call for settlers to stand down.
“Those who fight terrorism are the army and the security forces, and no one else,” he said.
President Isaac Herzog also condemned the attack, as did Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said the settlers had “attacked innocent people.” He added they did not “represent the values" of settler communities.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, as the heartland of a future state, a position with wide international backing.
Rights groups say that arrests for settler violence are rare, and prosecutions even rarer. Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper reported in 2022 that based on statistics from the Israeli police, charges were pressed in only 3.8% of cases of settler violence, with most cases being opened and closed without any action being taken.
It was unclear why the Jit attack yielded such a strong rebuke from Israeli leaders. A similar settler riot in the village of Al-Mughayyir in April went without comparable mention from the authorities. The Jit attack comes as Israel is under heightened international scrutiny over its role in ceasefire talks with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha, yet another attempt to broker an end to the 10-month-old war.
The French foreign minister and the British foreign secretary were also in Israel on Friday for meetings with diplomatic officials.
The US has broadly condemned settler violence and the expansion of Israel’s West Bank settlements.
US Ambassador Jack Lew wrote on the social media platform X on Friday that he was “appalled” by the attack, and the White House National Security Council called violent settler attacks “unacceptable.”
”Israeli authorities must take measures to protect all communities from harm, this includes intervening to stop such violence, and holding all perpetrators of such violence to account," it said in a statement.
Ultra-orthodox Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel called on Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency to investigate those involved and said the riot ran against Jewish values and harmed the “settlement enterprise.”