It also risks leaving Atilla with a hefty jail sentence and Halkbank with fines that could rattle the Turkish banking system. Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin described the conviction as a "scandalous decision in a scandalous case" and a "shameful scenario".
"It's a case that should have been dropped in its entirety," he told reporters in Ankara. "It is clear it is an interference in Turkey's domestic affairs." The Turkish foreign ministry added that the "so-called evidence" was only fit "for forgery and political abuse". A jury in New York found Atilla guilty on Wednesday of five counts of bank fraud and conspiracy.
The federal trial hinged on the testimony of well-connected Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who became a government witness after admitting his involvement in the multi-billion-dollar gold-for-oil scheme to subvert US economic sanctions against Iran. Zarrab was arrested in Miami in 2016 while seeking to take his family, including his pop star wife Ebru Gundes, on a holiday to Florida, and eventually agreed to testify in a plea bargain.
In testimony on November 30, he said he was told that Erdogan, as prime minister in 2012, and economy minister Ali Babacan had given "instructions" to two public banks to take part in the scheme. Zarrab also said he paid tens of millions of dollars worth of bribes to then-economy minister, Zaref Caglayan, to facilitate illegal gold transactions with Iran.
Erdogan had repeatedly slammed the trial as a plot against Turkey and, according to American newspaper reports, had often raised the case in talks with US leaders. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, at that point part of Zarrab's legal team, even met Erdogan in Ankara in search of a solution to the case.
Ties between Turkey and the US have been strained over a number of issues including Washington's refusal to extradite the Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara blames for orchestrating the failed 2016 coup. Only last week, the two sides resolved a months-long crisis that resulted in the suspension of visa services for Americans in Turkey and vice versa.