Oil Trafficker Babak Zanjani Freed from Death Sentence

Zanjani was sentenced to death after 26 court sessions examining the oil corruption case, being identified as a corrupt person on earth.

Ehsan.Sh, FCN News Agency: Babak Zanjani, the primary defendant in Iran’s oil corruption case, who had previously been sentenced to death as a corrupt person on earth, has been freed from this punishment.

According to FCN News Agency, the Supreme Court of the Country has nullified the ruling of the primary court regarding this defendant.

Babak Zanjani rose to prominence during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency and transformed into an oil trader.

At the time of Zanjani’s arrest, many Iranian intellectuals believed he would be easily punished and forcibly cast as a sacrificial victim of white-collar crimes.

This was the same perception that formed during the arrest of Saeed Mortazavi. However, it appears that these two individuals have acquired a threatening tool that is more powerful than the handwritten laws of white-collar criminals.

Amir Abbas Soltani, one of the parliament representatives who was also a member of the follow-up committee for the “Babak Zanjani” case, revealed secrets after his arrest in media interviews that indicate Zanjani had accomplices in the higher echelons of the Islamic Republic regime.

In these interviews, he named the then-Finance Minister, the Central Bank Governor, and the Oil Minister, emphasizing that the existence of these accomplices allowed Zanjani to continue his illegal activities even during his detention.

The charges against this individual suggest that he successfully embezzled more than 13 thousand billion tomans from the people’s assets.

While it is said that 90 percent of Zanjani’s assets are outside the country and the remainder of his wealth is registered under his accomplices’ names, he therefore has no assets to forfeit according to the primary court’s ruling.

Zanjani is an Iranian businessman who, during Ahmadinejad’s government and concurrent with the intensification of international sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programs, became one of the largest capitalists and one of the most accused individuals of corruption and rent-seeking in Iran’s history.

To the extent that his name has been linked to most cases of rent-seeking and economic corruption during this period.