A Pennsylvania man has been charged by U.S. federal prosecutors with torturing an employee at a construction project that the defendant was managing in Iraq's Kurdistan region in 2015 after the worker raised concerns about a program to produce weapons parts.
Ross Roggio, of Stroudsburg, was accused of suffocating the victim with a belt, threatening to cut off one of the individual's fingers and directing Kurdish soldiers to inflict other severe physical and mental pain and suffering, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement on Friday.
Roggio, 53, is the second American citizen - and the fourth person overall - to be charged with violating a U.S. torture statute that into effect in 1994, the department said. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit torture and one count of torture.
