Turkey orders arrest of goldtrader over villa restoration

ANKARA: Turkish authorities have ordered the arrest of gold trader Reza Zarrab, a prosecution witness in the New York trial of a Turkish banker, over unlawful building work, Anadolu news agency said on Monday. Zarrab, 34, a dual national of Iran and Turkey, was a government witness in the trial of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a former deputy general manager at Turkey´s state-owned Halkbank who was convicted of helping Iran evade US sanctions. On Monday, Anadolu said an Istanbul court had ordered the arrest of Zarrab for carrying out unlawful restorations at his villa in Istanbul´s Beykoz district, as part of the case in which he faces up to three years in prison. Zarrab was detained in the United States in 2016 and last year pleaded guilty to charges that he schemed to help Iran evade US sanctions.