Abuse by fed witness in big Turk graft case: suit
A TURKISH gold trader testifying in a politically charged case about Iran sanctions sodomized his cellmate with a cucumber and repeatedly raped him, a new lawsuit charges.
Reza Zarrab sexually assaulted Faouzi Jaber — who pleaded guilty in July to conspiring to traffick guns and drugs to revolutionaries in Colombia — while the two were cellmates at the Metropolitan Correctional Center between November 2016 and this past March 10, according to Jaber’s suit.
“The parties lived together locked for much of the time in a small cell which became a kind of torture chamber,” Jaber’s suit filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court states.
The 34-year-old Zarrab, ingratiated himself with Jaber, 62, of the Ivory Coast, before beginning his assaults, the suit says.
Zarrab, a wealthy Turkish-Iranian playboy, pleaded guilty to money laundering and other charges in October and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in a case that has rocked the highest levels of Turkish politics.
He hired a private lawyer for Jaber and in September 2016 put money in Jaber’s commissary account, the suit says.
Zarrab also wired money to Jaber’s family in Africa, the suit says. Zarrab, “through his power at the jail,” arranged to have Jaber moved into his cell, according to papers.
Once they were bunkmates, Zarrab “started telling Plaintiff that he likes having sex with both men and women,” Jaber’s suit reads.
In November 2016, Zarrab raped Jaber, according to legal documents.
“Because the two men were alone in their locked cell (Jaber) felt helpless and unable to fight off the younger and stronger (Zarrab),” the suit says.
In January, Zarrab bragged he had bribed a Bureau of Prisons employee $4,000 so both men would be moved to a wing of the prison with cells that afforded more privacy, Jaber charges.
Two months later, Zarrab attacked Jaber with the cucumber he got from the jail’s kitchen, the suit says.
Shortly after that, Zarrab was moved out of Jaber’s cell and is now in an undisclosed location while he cooperates with the feds.
Zarrab’s testimony in the ongoing case will likely will win him leniency against charges that could carry a prison term of up to 130 years.
U.S. authorities arrested him in March 2016 when he arrived for a trip to Disney World with his wife, daughter and four others.
Zarrab was charged in a plot to help Iran avoid U.S. economic sanctions and flood financial institutions with $1 billion of oil revenue. He is testifying against Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that the trial is a conspiracy to “blemish” the country.