Pennsylvania man accused of torturing employee in Iraq

Also: Pennsylvania Man Charged with Torture (U.S. Dept. of Justice)

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Source: Associated Press

Pennsylvania man accused of torturing employee in Iraq

February 18, 2022

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania man is accused of torturing an employee in Iraq after the worker raised concerns about a project to produce weapons parts in that country, federal prosecutors said.

Under a superseding indictment returned Tuesday, federal authorities accused Ross Roggio, 53, of Stroudsburg, with suffocating the victim with a belt, threatening to cut off one of the victim’s fingers and directing Kurdish soldiers to inflict pain and suffering on the victim.

Roggio and the Roggio Consulting Company were previously charged in 2018 with illegally exporting firearms parts and tools from the United States to Iraq as part of a weapons project in Kurdistan. The superseding indictment adds the torture charges to the previous counts.

Roggio was managing a project in 2015 to construct a factory and produce weapons in the Kurdistan region of Iraq when one of his employees raised concerns, prosecutors said.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-pennsylvania-united-states-iraq-stroudsburg-6ad05043a1e9b27147e589ff63ee297c

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, February 18, 2022

Source: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs

Pennsylvania Man Charged with Torture

Defendant Previously Charged with Illegally Exporting Weapons Parts to Iraq

A Pennsylvania man was arrested yesterday on charges alleging that he tortured a victim in the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2015.

A superseding indictment returned Tuesday in the Middle District of Pennsylvania charges Ross Roggio, 53, of Stroudsburg, with suffocating a victim with a belt, threatening to cut off one of the victim’s fingers and directing Kurdish soldiers to inflict other severe physical and mental pain and suffering on the victim.

“These charges demonstrate that the Department of Justice will hold U.S. citizens who commit horrendous acts of violence accountable,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Criminal Division is committed to bringing human rights violators to justice.”

“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 U.S. Attorney John C. Gurganus for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. “The grand jury’s superseding indictment and the hard work of our law enforcement partners show that such brutality will be exposed and addressed wherever it occurs.”

“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. “This superseding indictment underscores that the United States stands for the rule of law and will hold accountable anyone who commits acts of torture, regardless of where it takes place.”

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Read more: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/pennsylvania-man-charged-torture