Ramzan Kadyrov, the outspoken leader of Russia’s Chechnya republic, said he was ready to step down, leaving it for the Kremlin to choose his successor.

Kadyrov, a 41-year-old father of 12 whose interests vary from thoroughbred horses to wrestling and boxing, has been accused by human rights bodies of arbitrary arrests and torture of opponents, zero tolerance of sexual minorities and tough political declarations that have embarrassed the Kremlin.

A former Islamist rebel who had led Chechnya since 2007, he was endorsed by President Vladimir Putin in March last year to carry on in the job, while being warned that Russian law must be strictly enforced in the majority-Muslim region.

Asked in a TV interview if he was prepared to resign, Kadyrov replied: “It is possible to say that it is my dream.”

“Once there was a need for people like me to fight, to put things in order. Now we have order and prosperity … and time has come for changes in the Chechen Republic,” he told Rossiya 1 nationwide channel in comments aired early on Monday in central Russia.

Asked about his would-be successor, Kadyrov replied: “This is the prerogative of the state leadership.”

“If I am asked … there are several people who are 100 percent capable of carrying out these duties at the highest level.” He did not elaborate.

Kadyrov’s unexpected statement comes as Putin, 65, is widely expected to announce he will run for his fourth term as president in elections due in March.

The former KGB spy is widely expected to win by a landslide if he chooses to seek re-election, but some analysts have said his association with politicians like Kadyrov may be exploited by opponents during the campaign.

Chechnya, devastated by two wars in which government troops fought pro-independence rebels, has been rebuilt thanks to generous financial handouts from Russia’s budget coffers. It remains one of Russia’s most heavily subsidized regions.

Describing Putin as his “idol,” Kadyrov said in the interview: “I am ready to die for him, to fulfill any order.”

Kadyrov also strongly denied a Chechen link to the killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in 2015.

In June, a Moscow court convicted five Chechen men of murdering Nemtsov, one of Putin’s most vocal critics.

Nemtsov had been working on a report examining Russia’s role in Ukraine. His killing sent a chill through opposition circles.

“I am more than confident … these [Chechen] guys had nothing to do with that. According to my information, they are innocent,” Kadyrov said in the interview.
…

Thousands have protested in Romania’s capital and other major cities Sunday against planned changes to the justice system they say will allow high-level corruption to go unpunished and a tax overhaul that could lead to lower wages.

Protesters briefly scuffled with mounted police in Bucharest, and they blew whistles and called the ruling Social Democratic Party “the red plague,” in reference to its Communist Party roots and one of the party’s colors.

Thousands took to the streets in the cities of Cluj, Timisoara, Iasi, Brasov, Sibiu and Constanta to vent their anger at the left-wing government. In Bucharest, thousands marched to Romania’s Parliament.

Sunday’s protest was the biggest since massive anti-corruption protests at the beginning of the year, the largest since the fall of communism in Romania. Media reported tens of thousands took to the streets around the country, but no official figures were available.

Demonstrations earlier this year erupted after the government moved to decriminalize official misconduct. The government eventually scrapped the ordinance, after more than two weeks of daily demonstrations.

Prosecutors recently froze party leader Liviu Dragnea’s assets amid a probe into the misuse of 21 million euros (about $25 million) in European Union funds.

The European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, says the money was fraudulently paid to officials and others from the European Regional Development Fund for road construction in Romania. It asked Romania to recover the funds.

Dragnea denies wrongdoing and has appealed the ruling to freeze his assets. He is unable to be prime minister because of a 2016 conviction for vote-rigging.

Vasile Grigore, a 42-year-old doctor, said “we don’t want our country to be run by people who are being prosecuted, incompetent and uneducated.”

It was the latest protest this year over government plans to revamp the justice system. One proposal is to legally prevent Romania’s president from blocking the appointment of key judges. President Klaus Iohannis says he will use constitutional means to oppose the plan.

Demonstrators also oppose a law that will shift social security taxes to the employee. The government says it will boost revenues.

Anca Preoteasa, 28, who works in sales, accused the government of wanting “to take over the justice system so they can resolve their legal problems, but we won’t accept this.”
…

Leaders of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party agreed on Sunday to pursue a “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats (SPD) to break the political deadlock in Europe’s biggest economy.

Merkel, whose fourth term was plunged into doubt a week ago when three-way coalition talks with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens collapsed, was handed a political lifeline by the SPD on Friday.

Under intense pressure to preserve stability and avoid new elections, the SPD reversed its position and agreed to talk to Merkel, raising the prospect of a new grand coalition, which has ruled for the past four years, or a minority government.

“We have the firm intention of having an effective government,” Daniel Guenther, conservative premier of the state of Schleswig Holstein, told reporters after a four-hour meeting of leading members of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).

“We firmly believe that this is not a minority government but that it is an alliance with a parliamentary majority. That is a grand coalition,” he said.

The meeting came after the conservative state premier of Bavaria threw his weight behind a new right-left tie-up.

‘Best option’

“An alliance of the conservatives and SPD is the best option for Germany – better anyway than a coalition with the Free Democrats and Greens, new elections or a minority government,” Horst Seehofer, head of the Bavarian CSU, told Bild am Sonntag.

An Emnid poll also showed on Sunday that 52 percent of Germans backed a grand coalition.

Several European leaders have emphasized the importance of getting a stable German government in place quickly so the bloc can discuss its future, including proposals by French President Emmanuel Macron on euro zone reforms and Brexit.

Merkel, who made clear on Saturday she would pursue a grand coalition, says that an acting government under her leadership can do business until a new coalition is formed.

The youth wing of Merkel’s conservatives raised pressure on the parties to get a deal done by Christmas, saying if there was no deal, the conservatives should opt for a minority government.

In an indication, however, that the process will take time, the CDU agreed on Sunday evening to delay a conference in mid-December that had been due to vote on the three-way coalition.

The SPD premier of the state of Lower Saxony said he feared there was no way a decision would be reached this year. “It is a long path for the SPD,” said Stephan Weil on ARD television.

Merkel is against going down the route of a minority government because of its inherent instability, but pundits have said one possibility is for the conservatives and Greens to form a minority government with informal SPD support. The Greens have said they are open to a minority government.

Policy spats

Even before any talks get under way, the two blocs have started to spar over policy priorities.

Merkel, whose conservatives won most parliamentary seats in a September 24 vote but bled support to the far right, has said she wants to maintain sound finances in Germany, cut some taxes and invest in digital infrastructure.

She has to keep Bavaria’s CSU on board by sticking to a tougher migrant policy that may also help win back conservatives who switched to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The SPD needs a platform for its policies after its poorest election showing since 1933. Leading SPD figures have outlined conditions including investment in education and homes, changes in health insurance and no cap on asylum seekers.

Most experts believe the SPD has the stronger hand and several prominent economists said they expected the SPD to wield significant influence in a new grand coalition.

“If there is a grand coalition or even if there is toleration (of a minority government) I would expect more emphasis on the SPD’s program,” Clemens Fuest, president of the Ifo institute, told business newspaper Handelsblatt.

That would mean higher state spending and smaller tax cuts than would have been agreed with other potential partners.

The SPD is divided, with some members arguing that a grand coalition has had its day.

The SPD premier of the state of Rhineland Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, said she preferred the idea of the SPD “tolerating” a minority government over a grand coalition, making clear that the party would not agree to a deal at any price.
…

Iranian state television has aired more allegations against a detained Iranian-British woman, something her husband said Sunday appeared timed to further pressure London as it considers making a $530 million payment to Tehran.

The case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has gained momentum in recent weeks as British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson faces tremendous criticism at home over his handling of it.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, already serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly planning the “soft toppling” of Iran’s government while traveling there with her toddler daughter, also faces new charges that could add 16 years to her prison term.

On Thursday, Iranian state television aired a seven-minute special report on Zaghari-Ratcliffe. It included close-ups of an April 2010 pay stub from her previous employer, the BBC World Service Trust.

It also included an email from June 2010 in which she wrote about the “ZigZag Academy,” a BBC World Service Trust project in which the trust trained “young aspiring journalists from Iran and Afghanistan through a secure online platform.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe left the BBC in 2011 and then joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency. Both her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and Thomson Reuters repeatedly have stressed she was not training journalists or involved in any work regarding Iran while there.

The state television report comes as the British foreign minister faces criticism after he told a parliamentary committee that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “teaching people journalism” when she was arrested last year. Though Johnson later corrected himself, the Iranian television report made a point to highlight them.

Speaking to The Associated Press on Sunday, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband said the report and other Iranian comments about his wife seemed timed to exert as much pressure as possible on the British government. He said the material appeared to be from his wife’s email, which investigators from the hard-line Revolutionary Guard immediately got access to after her arrest.

“It’s trying to justify the new charges,” Ratcliffe said.

The report comes as Britain and Iran discuss the release of some 400 million pounds held by London, a payment Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered. The shah abandoned the throne in 1979 and the Islamic Revolution soon installed the clerically overseen system that endures today.

Authorities in London and Tehran deny that the payment has any link to Zaghari-Ratcliffe. However, a prisoner exchange in January 2016 that freed Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans also saw the United States make a $400 million cash delivery to Iran the same day. That money too involved undelivered military equipment from the shah’s era, though some U.S. politicians have criticized the delivery as a ransom payment.

Analysts and family members of dual nationals and others detained in Iran have suggested that hard-liners in the Islamic Republic’s security agencies use the prisoners as bargaining chips for money or influence. A U.N. panel in September described “an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals” in Iran.

Others with ties to the West detained in Iran include Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Wang, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly “infiltrating” the country while doing doctoral research on Iran’s Qajar dynasty. Iranian-Canadian national Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, a member of Iran’s 2015 nuclear negotiating team, is believed to be serving a five-year prison sentence on espionage charges.

Iranian businessman Siamak Namazi and his 81-year-old father Baquer, a former UNICEF representative who served as governor of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province under the U.S.-backed shah, are both serving 10-year prison sentences on espionage.

Iranian-American Robin Shahini was released on bail last year after staging a hunger strike while serving an 18-year prison sentence for “collaboration with a hostile government.” Shahini is believed to still be in Iran.

Also in an Iranian prison is Nizar Zakka, a U.S. permanent resident from Lebanon who advocates for internet freedom and has done work for the U.S. government. He was sentenced to 10 years last year on espionage-related charges.

In addition, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission, remains missing.
…

In February 1986, Natan Sharansky, a Soviet political prisoner, crossed the Glienicke Bridge linking East and West Berlin under American diplomatic escort, thus ending nine years of Gulag-style labor camps in Siberia and dark, cold cells in Moscow.

“Thirteen years after I asked to be deprived of Soviet citizenship, I was finally deprived of Soviet citizenship,” he said.

Sharansky emigrated to Israel, took up several ministerial positions in the Israeli government, including deputy prime minister. 

In an interview with VOA on the sidelines of events marking the centennial of the Bolshevik Revolution, Sharansky recalls his battles with the KGB and calls on leaders of the free world to take up the mantle left by visionaries such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and continue the legacy of democracy.

WATCH Sharansky: ‘By Sun, I See That We Were Going to the West’

‘By sun, I see that we were going to the West’

“They were taking me somewhere, they refused me to tell me where; by sun, I see that we were going to the West. After three or four hours, it was clear that we were no longer in the Soviet Union. I demanded [to know]: ‘Is this hijacking? What is happening to me?’”

He was finally informed by one of the four KGB men accompanying him that the Soviet state had determined that his actions were “not worthy of a Soviet citizen” and he was being expelled.

“This is how I understood I am free,” Sharansky told VOA.

Sharansky’s release was negotiated along with an exchange of spies between the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union. The transfer was layered in drama, with the Soviets seeking to keep their control of the political activist to the very last minute, while the Americans were pushing for their own concessions.

The American side insisted that Sharansky would cross the bridge a half-hour before the spies were exchanged, making clear that the “spying for the Americans” charge the Soviets put on Sharansky were groundless; he was a human rights activist both on the day he was sentenced and on the day he was freed.

Sharansky told VOA that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s counterpart, complained to him when the former prisoner and the USSR leader later met. 

“You say of all the people you’re grateful, No. 1 Reagan, No. 2 [Soviet dissident Andrey Dmitriyevich] Sakhorov, only No. 3 is me. I’m the one who released you!” Gorbachev said, according to Sharansky.

Sharansky insists, then and now, that the order of thanks for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and any authoritarian regime for that matter, is as follows: first of all, dissidents such as Andrey Sakharov in their time who “keep this spark of freedom of alive, I know this is very difficult, it needs a lot of courage and in many cases it has a tragic ending;” secondly, leaders like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher “who saw the real nature of the regime and understood it was an evil empire and you have to stand up to it and link the question of human rights with international policy.”

‘In the interest of détente, in the interest of peace, in the interest of stability’

Sharansky acknowledges, though, not everyone holding leadership positions in democratic societies treats the task of supporting democratic movements in totalitarian regimes with equal enthusiasm.

In the era of Reagan and Thatcher, international politics was largely dictated by “realpolitik,” he says, referring to a policy approach dominated by concerns for power juggling instead of moral objectives.

“Even if it was absolutely wrong morally, in the interest of détente, in the interest of peace, in the interest of stability,” Western societies largely practiced a noninterference or little-interference policy in the realm of human rights back then, he said.

Today, he says, there’s also the belief that it may be better not to demand change from dictatorships, which often appear invincible, at least on the outside, citing China as a regime that “is strong, or looks strong.”

“There are terrible human rights violations, and the world doesn’t ask questions, because they do not have the courage to demand a change to the policy,” he said.

The seeming habit of governments of bringing out a long list of “interests” or problems that “have to be dealt with first” before human rights issues, often put down as “abstract values,” are addressed, is “an absolutely wrong approach,” in Sharansky’s opinion; nevertheless, this approach, in his words, “is very typical,” citing his own experience.

WATCH: Sharansky: ‘Our Representatives Were Absolutely Shocked’

Chinese official ‘didn’t look like the one shocked by the question’

In 1997, while serving as minister of Industry and Trade in Israel, Sharansky met with a visiting Chinese delegation. 

“I said: Mr. Vice President, I was in a political prison for many years, I know how important it was that the [outside] world were asking about my fate, so I’m asking you, what about the fate of Chinese political prisoners?”

“He [the Chinese vice president] didn’t look like the one shocked by the question, but our representatives, our foreign affairs officials, were absolutely shocked! I think after this, there was some kind of order that I didn’t have any more meetings with Chinese [delegations]; they tried to prevent me from asking this kind of question again!” Sharansky said.

In the end, he says, Israel’s ability to affect Chinese government’s behavior is limited, “but it’s very important that when the American president and leaders of European countries are meeting with Chinese leaders that they put the question, the fate of dissidents on the top of their agenda.”

“I know that nowadays more often it doesn’t happen than happen,” he conceded.

​Reagan and Thatcher’s legacy

The former Soviet political prisoner sums up the legacy of Reagan and Thatcher in the roles they played in bringing down the Soviet empire: “Your solidarity with people struggling for freedom is not only your moral principle, it’s your basic interest.” His message for the new generation of leaders: “the more you understand this and your policy reflects this, the more you can influence the world.”

He attributes the reluctance to confront authoritarian regimes to a lack of understanding, due to deceptive appearances, of what goes on inside those regimes.

WATCH: Sharansky: The Nature of Totalitarian Regime

Anatomy of totalitarian regime

In every totalitarian regime, there are three categories of people, Sharansky says: a small group of true believers, a vast number of “double thinkers,” and dissidents.

He describes double thinkers as those “who don’t believe in the regime, who don’t believe in its ideology, but are afraid to speak the truth, so they pretend.” However, observers from the outside often mistake double thinkers, who tend to make up the majority of these societies, as true believers, he says.

“You see, these massive parades, everybody shouting ‘welcome’ to their leaders, everybody crying and weeping when the leader is dead, all these people must be true believers; look how strong this regime is!” Sharansky explained.

Such mass shows of support often can deceive outsiders and lead to dissidents’ voices being discounted when in fact “dissidents are usually people who are very connected to what is happening inside the minds of people” and understand the regime’s weaknesses, Sharansky said. 

“That’s why my friend Andrei Amalrik, 20 years before the Soviet Union fell apart, predicted that it would fall apart, explaining exactly what’s happening in the minds of the people. … He predicted it 20 years before it happened,” he added.

Sovietologists were wrong

Soviet dissident Amalrik published a book in 1970 titled Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? He said that he originally intended to use the year 1980 in the book’s title, but settled on 1984 instead, in recognition of British writer George Orwell’s seminal political novel 1984, which depicted the horrors of life under totalitarianism.

In contrast, “Sovietologists [academics who specialize on the former Soviet Union], even one year before it happened, before the Soviet Union fell apart, were writing and saying how strong the [Soviet] system is,” Sharansky said, adding the same can be said about other dictatorships.

WATCH: Sharansky: ‘It’s Not They Who Guarantee Work and Food’

Mitterrand: ‘I was wrong’

In the epilogue of his memoir, Fear No Evil, Sharansky wrote about a meeting with then-French Prime Minister François Mitterrand that underscores the odds against which dissidents and their supporters had to fight in their struggle to be heard.

During the meeting, Mitterrand pointed to a chair Sharansky was sitting in and said: “Avital [Sharansky’s wife] sat there often when she came to ask for my assistance. I always wanted to help her, but the truth is, I never believed she had a chance. I thought she was naïve, and that they’d never let you out. But your wife was right and I was wrong.”

Sharansky: ‘I Prefer to Be a Free Person in Their Prison’
…

The far-right Alternative for Germany party sees Chancellor Angela Merkel’s struggle to form a new government as proof of its growing power to upend the country’s political order, a top party official told AFP.

Parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland said in an interview that the current turmoil showed that the four-year-old AfD had succeeded in its primary goal in September’s general election.

“It’s all downhill for Merkel now, and that is partly our achievement,” Gauland said, sipping a glass of rose at a lakeside Italian restaurant in Potsdam.

“Her time is up — we want her to leave the political stage.”

The AfD campaigned on the slogan “Merkel must go,” railing against her decision to let in more than 1 million mainly Muslim asylum seekers since 2015.

Its election score was nearly 13 percent, snatching millions of votes from the mainstream parties and entering parliament for the first time with almost 100 seats in the Bundestag lower house.

Although Merkel won a fourth term, she has thus far been unable to cobble together a ruling majority — an unprecedented impasse in German postwar politics.

The crisis could trigger snap elections. Yet despite polls indicating that the gridlock could lift the AfD to an even stronger result, Gauland, 76, seemed reserved about heading back into electoral battle.

“It is not up to us to call new elections and we aren’t asking for them, but we are prepared for them,” he said.

“None of us is hoping for that with great enthusiasm, but we would probably make gains.”

Polls indicate that both Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the rival Social Democrats would shed support if voters were called back to the ballot box.

‘Voice to people’s fears’

With his trademark tweed jackets and reading glasses, Gauland cultivates the look of an English country gentleman and expresses pride over the support his anti-immigration message has received from pockets of the British right wing.

In May he sparked outrage by saying that while German fans love star footballer Jerome Boateng, who was born in Berlin to a German mother and Ghanaian father, “they don’t want to have a Boateng as a neighbor.”

With the German economy humming and unemployment at a record low, the AfD has zeroed in on identity as a rallying cry.

Gauland, a former CDU member, acknowledged that meant playing to deep anxieties and resentments, particularly in the former communist east, about a multicultural Germany.

“We have always said that we give a voice to people’s fears,” he said. “We don’t want the country to change to such an extent that it can’t be turned back.”

Apart from the current political volatility, Gauland sees the wind at the AFD’s back due to an announcement this month by one of Germany’s biggest employers, Siemens, that it was slashing nearly 7,000 jobs globally.

The industrial giant plans to close its sites in Goerlitz and Leipzig, both in the eastern state of Saxony, which the AfD won outright in September.

“That will probably help the AfD,” Gauland said of the layoffs.

“In any case it is not very smart public relations when you rake in record profits and then sack people at the same time.”

‘Brexit and Trump’

Gauland appeared relaxed about parties such as the pro-business Free Democrats trying to poach some of the AfD’s signature issues, including tougher border policies.

“There is the old fight about who is the original and who is the copy,” he said smiling. “If the FDP moves in our direction, I can’t condemn that as completely wrong.”

Gauland played down rivalries within the AfD, seen most spectacularly in the resignation of former co-leader Frauke Petry just days after the general election.

Looking ahead to a party congress this week in Hanover, Gauland said the AfD would focus on its platform rather than personnel.

“People don’t vote for the AfD because of specific people but out of protest at what is happening,” he said.

Gauland said he did not see the AfD as riding a global populist wave.

“Everyone always says, ‘Brexit and Trump, that will give you a big boost,’ but I don’t see it that way,” he said, pointing to the distinct national roots of each movement.

“I have always been skeptical of solidarity pacts with parties that are supposedly similar,”  including France’s National Front and the Dutch Freedom Party.

“An exception, though, is the FPOe,” Gauland added, citing “cultural” ties with the Austrian far-right party now in talks to join a ruling coalition.

Asked about a protest this week in which a group of activists secretly erected a replica of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial outside the home of AfD politician Bernd Hoecke, who has urged Germany to stop atoning for Nazi guilt, Gauland’s temper flared.

“It is absolutely outrageous and the fact that the press is not up in arms surprises and angers me a lot,” he said.

“But of course it will help [Hoecke] — that is absolutely clear.”
…

The fugitive leader of Catalonia’s separatist movement has launched his campaign for the upcoming Catalan elections from Belgium, where he awaits extradition.

Carles Puigdemont, who wants to be re-elected as regional president, launched “Together for Catalonia” from Bruges on Saturday. Spanish media reports that 90 of the candidates he chose traveled from Catalonia in northeastern Spain to the Belgian city for the launch.

Puigdemont and four former members of his government fled to Belgium following a declaration of independence by Catalonia’s parliament on Oct. 27 and a swift crackdown by Spanish authorities, which included firing his government and calling regional elections for Dec. 21.

Puigdemont’s extradition could take several weeks or longer, meaning he can run his campaign from abroad. He faces arrest if he returns to Spain.
…

President Emmanuel Macron has announced an initiative to address violence and harassment against women in France, with plans aimed at erasing the sense of shame that breeds silence among victims and changing France’s sexist culture.

In a speech on Saturday marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Macron laid out a plan to encourage women to take action, strengthen laws against offenders and educating citizens on the issue – starting from nursery school.

He said that 123 women died of violence against them in France last year. Holding a moment of silence for them, he said: “It is time for shame to change camps.”
…

The politically fraught trial of a Turkish-Iranian businessman accused of running a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran gets underway next week but is widely expected to start without the main suspect: Reza Zarrab.

Zarrab is a 33-year-old multimillionaire of dual Iranian-Turkish citizenship with business interests in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and ties to the governments of Turkey and Iran.

He was arrested in Florida in March 2016 while on a family trip to Disney World and later moved to New York to face criminal charges of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions between 2010 and 2015 by laundering money through the U.S. financial system and bribing Turkish officials.

​US-Turkey relations

The impending trial has become a flashpoint in deteriorating U.S.-Turkish relations.

Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan has personally lobbied the U.S. to release Zarrab, raising questions that Erdogan and other Turkish official are worried Zarrab could implicate them with bribery and corruption.

Meanwhile, the recent transfer of Zarrab from a federal detention center in New York to an undisclosed location has prompted speculation that he is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, possibly on unrelated matters of interest to Turkey.

Zarrab is accused of using a network of front companies in Turkey and the UAE to disguise hundreds of millions of dollars of business transactions on behalf of the Iranian government and other Iranian entities.

One entity, Mahan Air, is charged with ferrying fighters to Syria. Among other things, Zarrab is accused of shipping gold to Iran in exchange for Iranian oil and natural gas in a scheme known as “gold for gas.”

To facilitate his scheme, Zarrab allegedly paid tens of millions of dollars to Turkish government officials and bank executives.

The sanctions, aimed at Iran’s access to U.S. financial institutions, were lifted after Iran struck a deal with the U.S. and other major world powers in 2015 to keep a peaceful nuclear program.

Eight other people, including Zarrab’s 39-year-old brother, Mohammad Zarrab, and a former minister of economy, Mehmet Zafer Caglayan, have been indicted on charges related to the scheme.

But only one other, Mehmet Atilla, a former deputy general manager of Halkbank, one of Turkey’s largest banks, has been arrested.

Their trial has been repeatedly postponed and is now scheduled to start Monday in New York with jury selection.

Allegations

In court filings, prosecutors have alleged that Zarrab has had a personal relationship with Erdogan and that Erdogan may have known of of Zarrab’s sanctions-busting scheme.

Erdogan is not accused of any wrongdoing, but he and other Turkish officials have slammed the case as a conspiracy against Turkey.

Erdogan has repeatedly pressed President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama to drop the case. In September, he said Trump told him that the “prosecution is out of his jurisdiction.”

Yet as Zarrab’s trial draws near, there are indications that Zarrab may be negotiating a deal with U.S. prosecutors.

For starters, his whereabouts remains a mystery.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, Zarrab was “released” from the Metropolitan Correction Center, a federal detention center in New York, Nov. 8.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, where Zarrab will be tried, says he remains in “federal custody.”

Nick Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, confirmed Zarrab’s detention to VOA but declined to elaborate.

Indication he’s talking

Legal experts say Zarrab’s release from federal detention is an indication that he’s talking to prosecutors as part of a guilty plea deal.

“One cannot be sure, but the most likely explanation for the release of a detained defendant, in the absence of any formal release from detention, is that he is in the custody of the FBI,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor now a professor at Columbia University in New York. “This move rarely happens, but has occurred in extraordinary circumstances.”

Benjamin Brafman, Zarrab’s lead attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent weeks, Brafman and Zarrab’s other lawyers have not participated in key pretrial proceedings, such as providing questions for prospective jurors. That has fueled speculation that Zarrab may skip his own trial.

In an Oct. 30 court filing, Victor Rocco, an attorney for Atilla, Zarrab’s co-defendant, wrote that it appeared “likely that Mr. Atilla will be the only defendant appearing at trial.”

Eric Jaso, a former federal prosecutor now a partner at the Spiro Harrison law firm in Short Hills, New Jersey, said the absence of Zarrab’s lawyers from court proceedings could mean Zarrab is cooperating with the government.

Adding to the mystery, the federal judge overseeing the case dropped Zarrab’s name from the title of the case in an order issued Monday and replaced it with Atilla’s name.

The title change suggests Atilla will be the only defendant on trial Monday, Richman said.

“It is also consistent with Zarrab’s having already entered a guilty plea, although that is not necessarily the case,” Richman said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, whose office is prosecuting the case, gave no indication last week that his office has dropped the case against Zarrab.

“This case, our case, the prosecution that’s going on and we’ll start next week in the courthouse, was brought and will continue to be brought by career prosecutors, by career FBI agents and investigators,” Kim said at a press conference.
…

Poles held demonstrations in cities across the country Friday to protest plans by the ruling party to push through laws that would give it greater control over the courts and the national election commission.

The protesters rallied under the slogan “Free courts, free elections, free Poland” after lawmakers voted earlier in the day to give preliminary approval to the changes. Protests were also held abroad, including in Chicago, London and Dublin.

The ruling Law and Justice party has already pushed through two laws that have given it greater power over the Constitutional Tribunal and ordinary courts.

Two other bills on the judicial system that sparked large protests in the summer were blocked by the president but have returned to the legislature in modified form. The lawmakers sent them for fine-tuning to a specialized commission, and a vote on a final version could be held in early December. It would then need approval from the Senate and from President Andrzej Duda.

The European Union says that if passed, the bills would undermine the separation of powers, while Polish critics see these and other changes as a power grab that has nothing to do with improving the justice system.

The ruling party, however, says it is making needed reforms that have not been tackled yet since communism fell in 1989. It says the protests are the work of post-communist elites seeking to hold on to their privileges.
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Covert attempts by Russia to support Catalonia’s independence bid using disinformation and cyberattacks to support separatists may be part of a long-term strategy to penetrate and gain control not only of Spain’s wealthy northeastern region but also other parts of Europe, Spanish officials tell VOA.

Spain and NATO are investigating allegations that thousands of social media trolls or robot accounts were set up in Russia to amplify distorted or “fake news” items aimed at influencing a referendum for independence held October 1 in Catalonia.

No direct link has yet been established between the Russian government and the cyberattack, but much of the activity has been traced to a property near the city of St. Petersburg that is owned by a close business partner of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to testimony presented at a Spanish congressional hearing Thursday.

The cyberattack also has involved attempts to hack email accounts of opponents of the independence movement, according to the victim of such an attempt, Erik Encinas, who told VOA that Google traced an attempt to intercept his emails to a Russian source.

Russian crime organizations have been trying to gain leverage in the region for years and recently came close to taking control of the Catalan security ministry, a high-level intelligence officer operating in Catalonia who requested anonymity told VOA.

Russian money laundering

The intelligence officer, working for one of Spain’s main security services, participated in an investigation known as Operation Clotilde, in coordination with the U.S. Treasury Department. The investigation targeted money laundering by Russian crime syndicates through Catalonian banks, shell companies and real estate investments.

The intelligence officer told VOA some of the Russian money went to the Catalan nationalist Convergence and Union (CiU) party.

The Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), a radical CiU faction, joined the leftist ERC and CUP parties to form a regional governing coalition that held the October referendum for independence, which was ratified by Catalonia’s parliament.

Money laundering investigations were centered in the Catalan seaside resort of Lloret de Mar, whose former CiU mayor, Xavier Crespo, was indicted in 2014 for taking bribes from alleged Russian crime boss Andrei Petrov.

In 2013, Catalonia’s regional government appointed Crespo to the key post of security secretary, equivalent to a ministerial position, and one in which he would have controlled the Catalan police.

“His appointment was overturned when we reported our investigation to the regional government,” the intelligence officer told VOA. The officer pointed out, however, that Crespo’s association with Russian crime figures was well-known: In 2008, Crespo had made a much-publicized trip to Moscow and was hosted by Petrov, who took him on a helicopter ride.

Crespo was celebrating his security appointment in Lloret de Mar’s city hall when a unit of Spain’s Civil Guard gendarmerie “met with the Catalan regional government to inform them of our findings,” the Spanish intelligence officer said.

Taking control of police

Spain, which imposed direct rule in the region after last month’s independence vote, now faces the delicate task of taking control of Catalonia’s police force.

Most members of the regional government have been arrested, including security chief Joaquim Fom, who has been accused of supporting the independence bid.

Catalan police also failed to prevent the escape of regional President Carles Puigdemont to Belgium, where he is trying to establish a government in exile.

“The Russians would be looking to fill the void left by Catalan and Spanish companies that are leaving due to the instability,” the Spanish intelligence source said. More than 2,000 companies have transferred their headquarters out of Catalonia since October, including major multinational firms.

Spanish Intelligence analysts say that Russians see an independent Catalonia as a possible base from which to penetrate other parts of Europe, where their business activities are restricted by sanctions enforced by the United States and the European Union.

Russian officials have denied Spanish and NATO accusations.

But Putin has made no secret of his desire for revenge against the West for recognizing the 2008 unilateral independence of Kosovo, which caused the dismemberment of Serbia, a close Russia ally.

A Kremlin operative who acts as the virtual foreign minister of South Ossetia, which separated from the former Soviet republic of Georgia and came under Russian military protection in 2008, visited Barcelona last month to establish an “interests office” and meet with local businessmen, according to Spanish press reports.

The Kremlin operative also traveled to the Italian region of Lombardy, which is holding a referendum for greater autonomy from Rome.
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Syria’s main opposition group selected a new chief negotiator on Friday ahead of a new round of U.N.-backed peace negotiations with the Damascus

government set to kick off next week.

Nasr Hariri said the opposition was going to Geneva on Nov. 28 to hold direct talks and was ready to discuss “everything on the negotiating table.”

The announcement came at a summit in Riyadh where, a day before, the opposition stuck by its demand that President Bashar al-Assad play no role in an interim period, despite speculation that it could soften its stance because of Assad’s battlefield strength.

The opposition groups met to seek a unified position ahead of Geneva after two years of Russian military intervention that has helped Assad’s government reverse major territorial losses incurred since the beginning of the war.

Under pressure

Hariri replaces hardliner Riyad Hijab, who led the Higher Negotiations Committee at previous negotiations but abruptly quit this week, hinting that the HNC under him had faced pressures to make concessions that favored Assad.

U.N. peace talks mediator Staffan de Mistura, preparing for the next round of Geneva talks, met on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said Moscow was working with Riyadh to unify the Syrian opposition.

For many years, Western and Arab countries backed the opposition demand that Assad leave office. But since Russia joined the war on behalf of Assad’s government it has become increasingly clear that Assad’s opponents have no path to victory on the battlefield.

Putin requests framework

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a congress of the Syrian government and opposition to draw up a framework for the future structure of the Syrian state, adopt a new constitution and hold elections under U.N. supervision.

But he has also said that any political settlement in Syria would be finalised within the Geneva peace talks process overseen by the United Nations.

The opposition has long been suspicious of the parallel diplomatic track pushed by Russia, which before the proposed Sochi congress included talks in Kazakhstan, and has insisted that political dialogue should only take place in Geneva.

Hariri said Sochi did not serve the political process and called on the international community, including Russia, “to concentrate all our efforts to serve the political process according to international resolutions in Geneva under UN auspices.”

‘Moscow Platform’

Alaa Arafat, who represents the “Moscow Platform” political grouping, though, said he would attend Sochi and urged others to go too, reflecting lingering tensions within the diverse opposition.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir, who opened the summit on Wednesday pledging his country’s support for unifying the opposition, praised the creation of “one negotiating team that represents everyone.”

Asked if there was any change in position towards Assad’s future, he told reporters that Riyadh continued to support a settlement based on the U.N.-backed process at Geneva.

“We support the positions of the Syrian opposition. We have from the beginning and we will continue to do so,” he said.

Syria’s six-year-old civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee in the worst refugee crisis since World War Two.

 
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