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Trial Begins With High Stakes for US-Turkey Ties, Ex-Trump Adviser Flynn

Reuters

   In a court case that could further strain U.S. relations with Turkey
   and weigh on the sentencing of former U.S. national security adviser
   Michael Flynn, a criminal trial began on Monday involving a former
   Iranian-American business partner of Flynn.

   Bijan Rafiekian's trial in the Eastern District of Virginia turns on
   whether he conspired with Flynn and others to lobby on Turkey's behalf
   to try to persuade the U.S. government to extradite Muslim cleric
   Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Turkey for a failed coup.

   Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general whose brief tenure in
   2017 as part of President Donald Trump's inner circle is still causing
   legal aftershocks, is not charged as a co-conspirator with Rafiekian.
   But the case could influence how U.S. District Court Judge Emmet
   Sullivan sentences Flynn later this year in Washington.

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