It is a well known story that Turkey’s state-owned lender Halkbank is accused by U.S. prosecutors of seeking to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran by laundering up to $20 billion on behalf of Iranian entities, committing bank fraud and concealing the nature of the illicit transactions from U.S. officials. Yet, there are more lawsuits against Turkey which attract much less attention, though the harm to Turkeys reputation and to the coffers of her treasury could be larger. As an appeals court in New York State is expect to send the Halkbank’s Iran sanctions violations case back to the lower court this week, A lawsuit filed against the Republic of Turkey will proceed, after the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California held that Turkey was properly served, reports an Armenian source.
Arab News reported on October 25, 2002 that “A US district court ruling that a foreign bank based in Istanbul helped finance the Hamas terror group has heaped further pressure on Turkey over its tacit support for terrorism funding”.
The lawsuit by Barkev Ghazarian alleges violations of international law as well as statutory and common law claims against Turkey stemming from conduct committed by Turkey’s agents in the United States. It specifically alleges that Turkey’s agents harassed, demeaned and degraded Barkev Ghazarian, an elderly man from Glendale, California, because he sought to exercise religious and cultural rights in Turkey as a native Armenian Christian in 2017.
The pleading further alleges that Turkey’s agents interfered with the inheritance of Garo B. Ghazarian, Barkev’s son, by thwarting his father’s efforts to identify his family’s sacred sites within the borders of Turkey and pass to his son direct knowledge of the same and the native traditions practiced by generations of Ghazarians there.
The acts committed by Turkey’s agents were undertaken pursuant to a specific policy of Turkey targeting native Armenian Christians, as described in detail in the pleading. Plaintiffs claim that, in implementing this policy, Turkey intended and ensured that Barkev’s direct knowledge of his family’s ancestral traditions and pilgrimage sites would not pass to future generations of Ghazarians.
Three US law firms, including Stein Mitchell, last year launched legal action against the Kuveyt Turk bank over alleged terror financing.
The firms were acting on behalf of the estate of husband and wife Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, who were murdered in their car in a West Bank terror attack in 2015. The couple’s four children were also in the vehicle, but survived.
Eitam Henkin was a US national and his wife a foreign national.
The attack was praised by Hamas as an act of “brave resistance” and “heroic.”
In its ruling, the US eastern district court of New York said that the Kuveyt Turk “knowingly maintained several bank accounts for a Hamas operative who was the terrorist organization’s primary Turkish fundraising entity.”
According to the court, the bank “fully understood the operative’s role in supporting Hamas’ illicit and violent activities.”
“We all know about Iran’s longstanding support for Hamas. But less understood is the fact that Turkey, a NATO ally, provides significant support to the terrorist group,” Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted on Friday.
Plaintiffs in the case claimed that the bank aided and supported the murders by providing banking services to three customers, including a known Hamas operative, Jihad Yaghmour, and a Hamas-run institution, the Islamic University of Gaza.
However, the complaint also accused Turkey of acting as a “major political and financial supporter for Hamas,” with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly meeting senior Hamas leaders.
PATurkey can’t find information about potential damages in the Eitam and Na’ama Henkin case, while the Ghazarian trial will start soon. However, if the Turkish entities lose all three—including Halkbank, the Treasury will be liable to material and punitive damages running into billions of dollars.
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