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US man charged with torturing worker in Iraqi Kurdistan, trafficking arms

Sunday, 20 February 2022 6:48 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 20 February 2022 8:06 AM ]

US citizen Ross Roggio is seen in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in a January 2017 photo from his Facebook page.

An American man has been charged with torturing a worker while he was managing a project to construct a weapons factory in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region back in 2015.

Ross Roggio, 53, of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, arranged for Kurdish soldiers to abduct the employee for more than a month after he raised concerns about the project, according to a statement released by the US Justice Department on Friday.

“The grand jury charges that the defendant directed and participated in the systematic torture of an employee over the course of 39 days by Kurdish soldiers in Iraq,” said US Attorney John C. Gurganus for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

The superseding indictment said that, while the employee was detained at a Kurdish military compound, Roggio led multiple interrogation sessions during which he directed Kurdish soldiers to suffocate the victim with a bag, taser him in the groin and other areas of his body, beat him with fists and rubber hoses, jump violently on his chest while wearing military boots, and threaten to cut off one of the victim’s fingers.

On at least one occasion, it added, Roggio wrapped his belt around the victim’s neck, yanked him off the ground, and suspended him in the air, causing him to lose consciousness.

“The heinous acts of violence that Ross Roggio directed and inflicted upon the victim were blatant human rights violations that will not be tolerated,” said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.

In 2018, Roggio and the Roggio Consulting Company LLC were charged in a 37-count indictment with illegally exporting firearms parts and tools from the US to Iraq as part of the weapons project in Kurdistan Region.

The superseding indictment adds the torture charges to the previously charged offenses.

It additionally charges the Pennsylvania man with one count of conspiracy to commit torture and one substantive count of torture.

“This defendant leveraged his position and used foreign soldiers in order to intimidate and coerce someone who was a threat to the success of his corrupt scheme,” said Special Agent in Charge Jacqueline Maguire of the FBI’s Philadelphia Field Office.

If convicted, Roggio faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail for each of the torture charges as well as a maximum total statutory penalty of 705 years imprisonment for the remaining 37 counts.

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