Turkey - Iranian Businessman Zarrab suspected of sending $1.5 million for assassination of Saudi ambassador to US.

Turkey - Iranian Businessman Zarrab suspected of sending $1.5 million for assassination of Saudi ambassador to US.(TZ).

Reza Zarrab, an Iranian businessman who has been arrested as part of an ongoing graft probe, is claimed to have transferred the money for an assassination plot revealed three years ago that was to have been carried out by an Iranian-American against the Saudi ambassador to the US and of perhaps being a member of the Iranian al-Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“Is Reza Zarrab, who, according to a report by MİT [Turkey's National Intelligence Organization] sent $1.5 million for the assassination [of the Saudi ambassador] a member of the al-Quds Force, which is part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps?” asked Umut Oran, deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), in a written parliamentary question he submitted on Friday to be answered by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Erdoğan had described Zarrab as a charitable businessperson after Zarrab, who is also a Turkish citizen, was arrested in connection with a corruption probe in which four former Cabinet ministers are also implicated and which was made public on Dec. 17.

Manssour Arbabsiar, a dual US-Iranian citizen, was arrested in September 2011 in the US for conspiring to murder Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the US. Arbabsiar, who was sentenced in May 2013 to 25 years in prison, pleaded guilty in court in October 2012, acknowledging that he had hired an apparent drug dealer in Mexico in 2011 for the assassination plot.

Noting that Arbabsiar said in his first statement that he was employed, financed and directed by the al-Quds Force, Oran demanded to know in his parliamentary question: “Is Reza Zarrab, who is claimed to have sent money to this person, a member of the Iranian intelligence or military units. Have you received any information of this type?”

Authorities said Arbabsiar had admitted his role in a $1.5 million plot to kill the ambassador at a restaurant by setting off explosives, the news portal also said on Oct. 17, 2012.

According to the charges in the ongoing graft probe in Turkey, a criminal organization allegedly headed by Zarrab is thought to have distributed a total of TL 137 million ($66 million) in bribes to some Cabinet ministers and their sons to cloak fictitious exports and money laundering in which the organization was allegedly engaged.

In the parliamentary questions he submitted, Oran also noted that, as per a MİT report dated Oct. 21, 2011 that became public, Zarrab sent $1.5 million to Arbabsiar for the assassination and that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had detected the move.

“Was the information contained in the MİT document that was signed by six MİT members and presented under the heading ‘To Mr. Undersecretary [of MİT]' and dated Oct. 21, 2011, that said the companies Azra and Hacer Jewelery, [of] which Zarrab is the real owner, sent money for a murder-for-hire to Manssour Arbabsiar, who planned to murder Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the US, communicated to you?” Oran asked.Read the full story here.