US jury convicts American for torture, weapons manufacturing in Kurdistan Region

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A US federal jury convicted an American for manufacturing weapons illegally and torturing an Estonian citizen, in cooperation with Kurdish soldiers on a military compound in the Kurdistan Region in 2015, the US Justice Department said on Monday. 

According to the statement by US Justice Department Ross Roggio “arranged for Kurdish soldiers to abduct and detain the victim at a Kurdish military compound” for 39 days. The Estonian man who was subjected to the torture worked for Roggio at a weapons manufacturing company in the Kurdistan Region. 

“Roggio suffocated the victim with a belt, threatened to cut off one of his fingers, and directed Kurdish soldiers to repeatedly beat, tase, choke, and otherwise physically and mentally abuse the victim,” the statement added. 

A federal jury convicted the 54-year-old from Pennsylvania on Friday but his sentence is scheduled to be set on August 23. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. 

“Roggio brutally tortured another human being to prevent interference with his illegal activities,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said. 

The man was convicted of exporting weapons parts to Iraq without prior approval from the US State Department, committing torture, and “conspiring to commit an offense against the United States”.

In 2018, Roggio and his consulting company were charged in a 37-count indictment for illegally exporting firearm tools from the US to Iraq. Roggio was arrested in February last year. 

“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 at the time of the arrest.

A Rolling Stones report from February detailing Roggio’s business in the Kurdistan Region linked him to Polad Sheikh Jangi, the former head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) counter-terrorism. The report claims that Roggio allegedly used the factory to manufacture weapons for Sheikh Jangi.  There has been no comment regarding the claims by the former counter-terror head.