Mehmet Hakan Atilla

A racehorse belonging to Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian businessman who was arrested in the U.S. in 2016 over evading sanctions on Iran, had to leave his champion-style life in a hippodrome to live a more modest life on a simple ranch on the outskirts of Istanbul.

Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the former deputy chief executive of Halkbank, is definitely innocent, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Bloomberg in an interview on May 14.

A judge in New York on Feb. 7 turned down the request by former Turkish state banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla to be acquitted of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman wants lawyers in a case involving Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab and Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla to detail any internal communications they had with the U.S. and Turkish governments.

A US jury on Wednesday found a Turkish banker guilty of helping Iran evade US sanctions, after a nearly four-week trial that has strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey.

Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at Turkey's majority state-owned Halkbank, was convicted on five of six counts he faced, including bank fraud and conspiracy, in Manhattan federal court.

A U.S. judge on Jan. 2 refused to order a mistrial in the case of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the former deputy general manager at Turkey’s majority state-owned Halkbank who is charged with helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions.

U.S. prosecutors on Dec. 19 urged a New York jury to find Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at Turkey’s majority state-owned Halkbank, guilty of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions, while Atilla’s lawyers said he was a “blameless pawn.”

The judge in the trial of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla announced late on Nov. 27 that a jury of 12, including six alternates, has been selected and Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab will not face trial.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Nov. 24 that the defense team and prosecutors failed to agree on a number of disputed issues in the case of Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab and former Halkbank deputy general manager Mehmet Hakan Atilla.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman announced on June 12 that final hearings into a case in which the Iranian-born Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab and the former chief executive of Halkbank Mehmet Hakan Atilla are accused of attempting to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran will start on October 30, according to various media reports.