Federal prosecutors on Monday dropped charges against Bijan Kian, a onetime business partner of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn who had been accused of acting as an unregistered agent of the Turkish government.
Prosecutors alleged that Kian and Flynn, who were partners in an entity called the Flynn Intel Group, were acting at Turkey’s behest when they undertook a project to discredit exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen has been sought for extradition from the U.S. by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who blames Gulen for an attempted coup in that country.
The government’s case had been thrown into disarray at the outset of trial when it decided not to call Flynn, who was expected to be prosecutors’ star witness. Flynn acknowledged in a separate case that he made false statements about work he performed that benefited Turkey; he had hoped at one point that cooperating with prosecutors in Kian’s case would help him receive a lighter sentence in his own case. But he later sought to rescind his guilty plea and stopped cooperating.
Last year Trenga issued a 51-page ruling ordering that new trial. Among other factors, he cited evidence that an actual conspiracy involved Flynn and Alptekin, with Kian excluded from the arrangement.
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