New Revelations About Mansouri, Fugitive Judge Accused of Financial Corruption

The Gem television network announced that Judge Mansouri took the siblings of the network’s manager hostage in 2012 to shut down the network. Meanwhile, Mansouri claims he is abroad for medical treatment and that coronavirus has prevented him from returning to the country.

In the first hearing of Akbar Taberi and approximately twenty other defendants held yesterday, June 8th, the mention of some defendants including Gholamreza Mansouri, who was formerly an inspector and acting prosecutor of the Culture and Media Prosecution Office, triggered numerous reactions and revelations.

Taberi was the general director of financial affairs of the judiciary during Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi’s leadership of the judiciary and was appointed as executive deputy during Sadegh Larijani’s tenure while retaining his position.

Mansouri was also a senior judicial official during Larijani’s period and is now the ninth defendant in the corruption and bribery case. According to Rasoul Qahremani, his prosecutor’s representative, he is a fugitive and accused of receiving 500,000 euros in bribes. In response to these actions and accusations, on Monday evening, June 19th, Mansouri released a video message claiming he is being treated abroad and that border closures due to coronavirus have prevented him from returning to the country.

Meanwhile, following revelations by several journalists and political activists who were imprisoned by Mansouri’s ruling or intervention, the Gem television network (GEM TV) on June 19th published a post on social media revealing for the first time that Judge Mansouri took the relatives of the network’s manager Saeid Karimian hostage in 2012 and “held them for a long time in the country’s most secure prisons under the worst possible conditions”.

“Hostage-taking” of Gem Network Manager’s Relatives

The post stated that the purpose of pressuring Karimian was to shut down Gem TV, but even after the network was temporarily shut down for ten days, his siblings were not released from prison.

The Gem television network wrote: “These pressures continued in the form of publishing yellow news and dirty rumors about Saeid Karimian and attempts at character assassination, pressuring the families of media personnel in Iran, and ultimately led to the assassination of Saeid Karimian in 2017.”

Karimian was targeted in an armed attack in Istanbul in May 2017 and was assassinated. The attackers fired 27 bullets at the then-director of Gem TV and a Kuwaiti merchant accompanying him, killing them both.

Simultaneously with the release of this statement, Abbas Amirifor, Secretary-General of the Association of Friday Prayer Leaders, imam of the mosque of the presidential institution during the first government and cultural advisor to the institution during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s second term, in a note published in Ensaf News identified Judge Mansouri and Sadegh Larijani as responsible for mistreating him.

Fugitive Judge, Larijani’s Special Judge?

Amirifor wrote in this note: “This vile person and special judge named Gholamreza Mansouri, the special and exclusive judge of Sadegh Larijani, in 2011 detained me on a baseless charge of assisting in the distribution of a CD titled ‘The Imminent Appearance,’ without a convincing charge and by the order of Sadegh Larijani, for 52 days in solitary confinement in Ward 241 of Evin Prison, and after 8 years formally announced that I was acquitted, and before Ayatollah Raissi’s arrival, he was retired by the order of Sadegh Larijani and finally fled the country out of fear of arrest for taking bribes!”

Akbar Taberi was dismissed in late 2018 with the beginning of Ibrahim Raissi’s tenure as head of the judiciary and was arrested in late July of the following year by Quds Force intelligence operatives.

Following the announcement of Akbar Taberi’s arrest, extensive discussions emerged about his connection to Sadegh Larijani, who had been appointed as head of the Expediency Discernment Council at that time.

The Expediency Discernment Council office later issued a statement denying the accusations against Taberi, writing: “Some of the accusations made against the executive deputy of the judiciary had previously been examined in the prosecutor’s office and had been proven false. The former head of the judiciary also independently examined them and confirmed their falsity to him.”

Declaring Taberi innocent months before the trial began, along with other evidence, has exposed Sadegh Larijani to significant pressure. The “Era of Iran” news website wrote in an analysis of Taberi’s trial that corruption of this magnitude could not have been carried out individually or by a small team, much less over many years.

The Necessity of Sadegh Larijani’s Accountability

“Era of Iran” stated that Taberi was the second powerful figure in the judiciary during Sadegh Larijani’s tenure and his word carried the force of the head’s order, writing: “The former head of the judiciary must also be accountable within the framework of law for his performance regarding Akbar Taberi.”

Amirifor, one day before the start of Akbar Taberi’s trial, welcomed the open holding of the court and expressed hope that Sadegh Larijani’s trial would also be held soon.

A number of journalists imprisoned by rulings of the judge accused of receiving half a million euros in bribes also reacted to the mention of his name among the defendants in the judiciary corruption case.

Hossein Mehrzad, a journalist, in a Twitter message posted pictures of several journalists against whom Mansouri had issued rulings and wrote that these rulings were issued in February 2013, which “was perhaps the hardest days of the 2010s decade for our profession.”

Imprisoning Media Officials “for God’s Consent”

Akbar Montajabi, deputy editor-in-chief of Sazandegi newspaper, in a Twitter message referring to the accusation of large-scale bribery and Mansouri’s fugitive status, wrote that in 2012 he “issued arrest warrants for 20 journalists overnight.”

Pouria Alami, a satirist and journalist who, according to himself, spent 34 days in solitary confinement due to “Mansouri’s judgment,” wrote in a note addressing him: “You told my mother ‘I am ruling for God’s consent’ – certainly God is satisfied with you; because I read in the news that God, as a reward, has given you 500,000 euros and a one-way ticket to Europe.”

It is expected that in the coming days, a larger number of victims of judges whose names have also been mentioned in the Akbar Taberi case will come forward with revelations.

Nevertheless, many critics believe that nothing will change unless serious changes occur in the structure and environment that is the nursery and field of activity of “the corrupt”; the accused judges have been active in this judiciary for decades in activities for which they are now being tried for some of them.

Regarding people like Judge Mansouri, currently only bribery and financial corruption are being discussed, and it is unclear what will become of the possibly unjust rulings that such judges have issued and who is responsible for the damage that journalists, political activists, and many citizens have suffered from these rulings.

Source: DW