ADAM KLASFELD - courthousenews.com - MANHATTAN (CN) — The major players behind the 2008 global financial crisis may be free, but a Turkish bank manager’s prosecution for facilitating billions in illicit trades with Iran proves that the financial sector isn’t “too big to jail,” a U.S. prosecutor said on Tuesday. Facing the possibility of decades behind bars, Turkish national Mehmet Hakan Atilla has vigorously maintained his innocence throughout two days of cross-examination about his work at Turkey’s state-run Halkbank, the nation’s sixth largest bank. Directly after leaving the witness stand, Atilla jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire of a prosecutor’s heated summation. Defense attorneys have depicted Atilla as one of 13 managers who improbably found himself at the center of a geopolitical drama.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey said on Wednesday the United States has isolated itself by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and accused it of threatening countries that might vote against it on the matter at an emergency U.N. General Assembly session.

Former deputy CEO of Turkish public bank Halkbank Mehmet Hakan Atilla completed his three-day testimony on Tuesday. He is facing a trial in which he is being accused of breaching US sanctions against Iran. Atilla became the only defendant in the case, after Reza Zarrab, who was the prime defendant, pleaded guilty and testified as a witness against the former banker, accusing him of the related crimes. “I did not conspire with anyone in any part of my life on that [evading sanctions],” Atilla responded to a question about whether or not he ever collaborated with Zarrab or anyone, on Friday during the first day of questioning by his lawyer.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey regrets the vetoing by the United States on Monday of a U.N. Security Council resolution that called for the U.S. declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to be withdrawn, the Turkish foreign ministry said.  The United States was further isolated over President Donald Trump’s decision when it blocked a United Nations Security Council call for the declaration to be withdrawn despite the other 14 members voting in favor of it. “The United States being left alone in the vote is a concrete sign of the illegality of its decision on Jerusalem,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.