Governor of Khuzestan Refuses to Clarify Allegations of Receiving Tens of Thousands of Dollars in Bribes from Haft Tappeh CEO
Following the release of reports from a closed-door trial of Haft Tappeh’s CEO regarding “bribes of tens of thousands of dollars paid to the wife of Khuzestan’s governor,” ISNA news agency reported that Khuzestan’s governor refused to provide clarification on the matter and merely stated: “The moon does not stay behind clouds.”
Gholamreza Shariati on Saturday, June 3rd, in response to journalists’ questions about Haft Tappeh’s CEO’s trial, only said: “Please be patient so that everything will hopefully become clear.”
According to ISNA, he also recited a hadith, saying that falsehood disappears by not being mentioned.
The trial examining the charges against Omid Asadbeigi, CEO of Haft Tappeh Sugar Company, is being held behind closed doors, but some principalist media outlets, including the “Student News Agency,” have published details from this trial.
These media outlets reported after the second trial session held on April 19th that Omid Asadbeigi paid 20,000 dollars for one of the governor’s and his family’s trips to the governor’s wife, and also transferred 200,000 dollars to the governor’s wife through an intermediary.
A principalist media activist participating in these trials stated that the prosecutor’s representative said in the second trial session: “Omid Asadbeigi believes that any person can be bought with money, and he has proven this in his actions.”
According to the same report, the prosecutor’s representative also referred to some allegations raised about Asadbeigi’s financial relations “with the country’s prosecutor general and his son,” “Hojjati, the Minister of Jihad Agriculture,” and “Jahangiri, the First Vice President.”
On the other hand, some media outlets and activists close to the government and reformists have claimed that involving Khuzestan’s governor in this case has factional motivations.
Omid Asadbeigi is the primary defendant in the case investigating “violations of state currency regulations,” and is among 20 defendants charged with “disrupting the country’s monetary and currency system through large-scale currency smuggling and unauthorized state currency transactions.”
According to a brief report that Islamic Republic Television broadcast from the statements of Masoud Shahmoradi, the prosecutor’s representative in this case, the amount of state currency received and the extent of violations in them have set records, reaching more than 1.4 billion dollars.
Haft Tappeh Sugar Company was transferred to the private sector in 2015. Workers at this industrial complex, announcing that numerous violations occurred during this privatization and their labor problems intensified afterward, held several rounds of protest gatherings, with the peak occurring in November and December 2018.
Some workers of this company and activists covering the protests were arrested, and two of them, Esmail Bakhshi and Sepideh Golian, after initial release and recounting the torture they endured, were imprisoned again.
Besides Omid Asadbeigi, several other managers or associates of Haft Tappeh Sugar Company have been charged with billions of dollars in currency violations, including Mehrdad Rostami Chigini, the chairman of the board of this company, who is the second defendant in this case.
Source: Radio Farda
