An American accused of torturing an Iraqi worker and suffocating him with a belt

US federal prosecutors charged a Pennsylvania American with torturing a construction project worker the defendant was running in the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2015 after the worker drew attention to a program on the project to produce weapons components.

The US Department of Justice said in a statement that prosecutors charged the man, Ross Roggio of Stroudsburg, with strangling the victim with a belt, threatening to cut off one of his fingers, and directing Kurdish soldiers to subject him to severe physical and psychological pain.

According to "Sky News Arabia," the ministry added that Roggio, 53, is the second US citizen and the fourth person ever to be charged with violating a 1994 US torture law.

"The grand jury credits the accused with directing and participating in the systematic torture of a worker over a period of 39 days by Kurdish soldiers in Iraq," said John Gorganos, the US attorney in Pennsylvania who is handling the case.

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