Continued reactions to the audio file about widespread corruption in the IRGC

Ali Khamenei's representative at the Kayhan Institute has claimed that the revelations about corruption in the IRGC were related to a front company. A leaked audio file mentions, among other things, Qassem Soleimani's efforts to appeal to Khamenei to get the accused cleared.

The aftershocks of the disclosure of a 50-minute audio file of conversations between the commander-in-chief and the then deputy economic director of the Revolutionary Guards, which was broadcast on Radio Farda on February 11 of this year, continue.

In the conversations that took place in 2018 in this audio file between Mohammad Ali Jafari and Sadeq Zolghadrnia, widespread corruption is mentioned in the Revolutionary Guard Cooperative Foundation, the Quds Force, and the Tehran Municipality, which involves many Khamenei appointees, including Qassem Soleimani and the current Speaker of the Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

This audio file points to the prominent role of the former mayor of Tehran, former and current commanders of the IRGC's Quds Force, Jamal al-Din Abroomand, then deputy coordinator of the IRGC, and Hossein Taeb, head of IRGC intelligence, in widespread corruption, amounting to thousands of billions of tomans.

Claims of Khamenei's representative in Kayhan

Hossein Shariatmadari, the representative of the Leader of the Islamic Republic at the Kayhan Institute, claimed in a note that the leaked conversation shows the seriousness of the IRGC commanders in combating corruption and the judiciary's action to try and punish them.

Contrary to this claim, a number of the defendants in the cases mentioned in the audio file have not been tried at all, and some of them, who were tried and convicted, are currently free without serving their sentences.

In part of the conversation between the IRGC commanders, Yas Holding, an important arm of the IRGC Cooperative Foundation, was mentioned, which at the time was the subject of much discussion about corruption worth several trillion tomans, and Jamal al-Din Abroomand, the then deputy coordinator of the IRGC, was one of the main guests.

In part of his conversation with Zolqadrnia, Jafari says that Qassem Soleimani was very upset about the treatment of the violators of Yas Holding and that he had also referred to Khamenei on this issue.

The conversation also states that Khamenei personally ordered that 90 percent of the Cooperative Foundation's income be given to the Quds Force and 10 percent to the IRGC.

Soleimani as a supporter of the corrupt and violators

Hossein Shariatmadari says that Soleimani spent this money “saving the women, men, and children of this country from the clutches of the savage Takfiris,” and that this is in no way “unpleasant or vile.” He makes no mention of Soleimani’s mediation to exempt violators from punishment.

In response to such efforts to purge senior IRGC commanders of involvement in widespread and organized corruption, journalist Masoud Kazemi wrote in a Twitter message, "So Mohammad Ali Jafari is one of the defendants in the corruption case at Bank Sarmeh, whose charges were never investigated."

Ramadan Sharif, spokesman and head of public relations for the IRGC, is another person who has reacted to the disclosure of the audio file about the corruption of IRGC commanders.

Mehr News Agency (February 15) wrote, citing Sharif: "For the past 5 years, the IRGC's supervisory agencies, in line with their current methods and continuous monitoring, have suspected a phenomenon of mismanagement and violations in one of the companies affiliated with the IRGC Cooperative Foundation. After a thorough and professional investigation, the case was referred to the courts, and the judiciary, in cooperation with the IRGC, issued sentences for the violators, who are currently serving their sentences."

One of the main suspects, a carpet weaver's assistant

This claim was made while the IRGC's deputy economic officer accused Qalibaf in a conversation with Jafari of asking him to "cooperate in resolving and returning the eight trillion toman deficit of the Jamaluddin Abroomand team in the IRGC Cooperative Foundation."

After becoming the speaker of the parliament, Qalibaf appointed Jamal al-Din Abroomand as his assistant. Many other senior IRGC commanders whose names have been raised in connection with corruption cases, such as Hossein Taeb, are considered close and confidants of Khamenei, and their charges have never been investigated.

Fars News Agency, a media outlet close to the IRGC that confirmed the authenticity of the audio file of the conversation between Jafari and Zolghadrnia a day after it was leaked, attempted to introduce Qalibaf and senior IRGC commanders in an "analytical report" on February 15 as individuals who played a key role in pursuing corruption cases and prosecuting the defendants; a claim that the audio file completely proves to be the opposite.

Source: DW