Oztunc, Ekrem Abdulkerym

"Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the United Kingdom are taking joint action against a network of individuals that targeted Iranian dissidents and opposition activists for assassination at the direction of the Iranian regime. The network is led by Iranian narcotics trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti (Zindashti) and operates at the behest of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Zindashti’s network has carried out numerous acts of transnational repression including assassinations and kidnappings across multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to silence the Iranian regime’s perceived critics. The network has also plotted operations in the United States... Ekrem Abdulkerym Oztunc (Oztunc), Zindashti’s nephew, is also a close associate and key lieutenant in Zindashti’s network residing in Iran. In his role as Zindashti’s close aide, Oztunc has assisted Asan and Zindashti in sensitive communications. Oztunc was previously arrested alongside Zindashti in Istanbul in 2018 on murder charges."¹

"Ekrem Oztunc is a nephew of Naji Zindashti and a close Zindashti Network associate. He has played a pivotal role in relaying, through encrypted channels, the orders to kill during the Network’s assassination attempts. As such, Ekrem Oztunc is associated with Naji Zindashti and the Zindashti Network, as well as responsible for planning, ordering, assisting in or facilitating extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings and enforced disappearance of persons, which constitute serious human rights violations or abuses."²

Sources:

1. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2052 

2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202501396