Hassan Rouhani's brother sentenced to five years in prison
On Tuesday, October 29, the Judiciary Spokesperson announced that Hossein Fereydoun, the brother of the Iranian President, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for accepting bribes.
According to IRNA, Gholamhossein Esmaili said in a press conference that "Hossein Fereydoun has been sentenced to 5 years in prison, a fine, and the forfeiture of property worth 31 billion tomans."
He explained that "the appeals court has issued the final verdict on Hossein Fereydoun, and the seven-year prison sentence has been reduced to five years."
This case also took on political dimensions from the beginning, and while conservative members of parliament have always called for the trial of Hassan Rouhani's brother, some reformist figures had suggested that an impartial panel investigate both his case and the accusations against Mohammad Javad and Fazel Larijani, two brothers of the then head of the judiciary.
According to Fars News Agency, Hossein Fereydoun's charges in a case currently being pursued by the judiciary are related to bribery, money laundering, and the diversion of dirty money.
Fars writes, citing "an informed source," that "in return for receiving bribes, he conducted effective consultations to assign responsibilities in banks and other influential economic sectors to specific individuals, and these individuals paid him huge sums in return."
According to the news agency, "the initial estimate of the amounts involved in bribery and money laundering amounts to several tens of billions of tomans," and the case also includes the names of individuals such as Rasoul Danialzadeh, one of the bank debtors, and some former bank heads, including Sedghi, the former CEO of Refah Bank.
Rasoul Danialzadeh was arrested on January 15, 2016, due to his debt to banks of more than two trillion tomans.
On July 15, 2017, judicial authorities announced the arrest of Hossein Fereydoun on "financial charges," and a day later, news came that he had been released on "50 billion Tomans bail." So far, Fereydoun's charges have been heard in four court sessions.
After the arrest of Hossein Fereydoun, government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said: "This issue should also be the same for the head of the judiciary or the legislature, and the independent judiciary will deal with others the same way it dealt with the president's brother."
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili also said in a press conference on Tuesday about the "bribery" case involving Hassan Rouhani's brother that "an acquittal has been issued for another defendant in this case. Also, in the case of a woman whose sentence was suspended by the court of first instance for two-thirds, the remaining one-third has been suspended by the court of appeal."
Source: Voice of America
