ISTANBUL: Turkish police have summoned an FBI official stationed in Turkey in connection with testimony in a US federal corruption case against a Turkish banker, Turkey’s official news agency reported.
Anadolu Agency said the FBI attache was “invited” to speak to officials after a former Turkish deputy police chief reportedly told a jury in New York that the FBI paid him $50,000 and US prosecutors covered his rent. Anadolu did not name the attache.
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert confirmed an FBI official was “brought into the Turkish ministry.” The American case has further strained already tense relations between Turkey and the US
The testimony in the US involved the former Turkish deputy police chief, Huseyin Korkmaz, who was part of a law enforcement team leading a corruption probe in 2013 in Turkey. He was later arrested in a 2014 investigation for alleged links to US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was later blamed for a 2016 coup attempt.
Korkmaz said he fled Turkey after the coup, with evidence allegedly showing collusion by top Turkish government officials in a money-laundering scheme evading US sanctions on Iran.
Korkmaz is testifying in the trial against banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who has pleaded not guilty. The star witness against Atilla is a Turkish-Iranian gold trader who pleaded guilty and said he bribed a former Turkish economy minister and the former manager of state-owned Halkbank.
Turkey calls the 2013 corruption probe “a judicial coup” by Gulen’s network and a precursor to the 2016 coup.
Gulen denies all involvement.
Turkey summons FBI attache over testimony in US trial
Turkey summons FBI attache over testimony in US trial
Israel’s ‘deliberate intention of preventing births among Palestinians’ meets ‘legal criteria of Genocide Convention’: Reports
- Births in Gaza fell by 41% during conflict as maternal deaths, miscarriages surged
- ‘The destruction of maternal care in Gaza reflects the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinian people, in whole or in part’
LONDON: Births in Gaza fell by 41 percent due to Israel’s war on the territory, with the conflict resulting in catastrophic numbers of maternal deaths, miscarriages and birth complications, two reports have found.
The data on pregnant women, babies and maternity care in the war-torn Palestinian enclave also revealed a surge in newborn mortality and premature births, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Dangerous wartime conditions and Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s health systems were blamed for the alarming statistics.
The two reports were conducted by Physicians for Human Rights, in collaboration with the University of Chicago Law School’s Global Human Rights Clinic and Physicians for Human Rights — Israel.
Researchers highlighted Israel’s “deliberate intention of preventing births among Palestinians, meeting the legal criteria of the Genocide Convention.”
The reports build on earlier findings by PHR’s Israel branch. They place the testimonies of pregnant women and new mothers within the context of health data and field reports, which recorded “2,600 miscarriages, 220 pregnancy-related deaths, 1,460 premature births, over 1,700 underweight newborns, and over 2,500 infants requiring neonatal intensive care” between January and June 2025.
PHRI’s Lama Bakri, a psychologist and project manager, said: “These figures represent a shocking deterioration from pre-war ‘normalcy,’ and are the direct result of war trauma, starvation, displacement and the collapse of maternal healthcare.
“These conditions endanger both mothers and their unborn babies, newborns, and breastfed infants, and will have consequences for generations, permanently altering families.”
She added: “Beyond the numbers, what emerges in this report are the women themselves, their voices, choices and lived realities, confronting impossible dilemmas that statistics alone cannot fully capture.”
Maternal and newborn care in Gaza has been damaged by Israel’s destruction of health infrastructure, as well as fuel shortages, blocked medical supplies, mass displacement and relentless bombardment.
As a result, survival in Gaza’s overcrowded tent encampments has become the sole option for pregnant women and new mothers.
During the first six months of Israel’s war on the territory, more than 6,000 mothers were killed, at an average of two every hour, according to UN Women estimates.
It is also believed that about 150,000 pregnant women and new mothers have been forcibly displaced by the conflict.
In the first months of last year, just 17,000 births were recorded in Gaza, a 41 percent fall compared to the same period in 2022.
The researchers examined Israel’s apparent strategy to undermine Palestinian births, highlighting a targeted strike in December 2023 on the Al-Basma IVF clinic.
The attack on Gaza’s largest fertility center destroyed about 5,000 reproductive specimens and ended a pattern of 70-100 IVF procedures each month.
The strike was deliberately designed to target the reproductive potential of Palestinians, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry later found.
“Reproductive violence constitutes a violation under international law; when carried out systematically and with them intent to destroy, it falls within the definition of genocide of the Genocide Convention,” the reports said.
“The destruction of maternal care in Gaza reflects the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinian people, in whole or in part.”
