Petrochemical case: Former Industry Minister's son-in-law has fled Iran
The judge in the court hearing the “Corruption in Petrochemicals” case says that the son-in-law of the former Minister of Industry has fled Iran with another passport. It was previously reported that Ali Ashraf Riahi has taken his wife and child out of the country and is a fugitive inside the country.
In the 14th court session investigating the alleged economic disruption of 6.656 billion euros by the Petrochemical Trading Company, the judge announced that one of the defendants had fled the country with a fake passport.
Ali Ashraf Riahi, the son-in-law of Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, the former Minister of Industry and Mines in the Rouhani government, is accused of aiding in "macroeconomic disruption" and "accumulating illegitimate wealth." According to Judge Masoudi Moghadam, after sending his wife and child abroad, he was able to flee Iran using someone else's passport.
It was previously said that Riahi was unable to leave the country due to a travel ban.
The petrochemical corruption case has a total of 15 defendants, four of whom are still at large, including Marjan Sheikholeslami, the partner of the first defendant.
Marjan Sheikholeslami is accused of establishing companies to circumvent sanctions and amassing more than seven million euros in “illegitimate wealth” in collusion with Reza Hamzehlou, the former CEO of the Petrochemical Trading Company. She has denied these allegations in a letter.
In response to Hamzehlou's defense that he converted foreign currency into rials with legal permits, Judge Masoudi Moghadam said: "Ali Ashraf Riahi provided some of the information with documents and fled the country with another passport."
He asked Hamzehlu to submit to the court within a week the documents on the spending of the transferred currencies. Emphasizing the documents provided by Ashraf Riahi, the judge said: "This person even presented materials against the former minister, who is his father-in-law, in order to settle Shabnam Nematzadeh's account in the pharmaceutical issue, and he presented documents, and the documents that were presented were from your partners and deputies, and the documents have been verified."
ISNA news agency writes that Reza Hamzehlou denied knowing Ashraf Riahi and said that if Sheikholeslami was involved in the transfer of 240 million euros through exchange offices, he should personally answer.
The court also accused the former CEO of the Petrochemical Trading Company of purchasing two buildings for Sheikholeslami in Canada and paying foreign currency to his son and brother.
Family companies
The drug case, which was mentioned in the court hearings and the documents presented by the son-in-law of the former Minister of Industry, relate to the “Rasa Drug Development” company, which was run by the daughters of Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh. Zeinab Nematzadeh, the wife of Ali Ashraf Riahi, was a member of the board of directors of the company, and the management of the affairs was in the hands of Shabnam Nematzadeh, who has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges of “drug hoarding” and “disrupting the economic system.”
Ahmad Tavakoli, a former member of parliament and director of the non-governmental organization “Integrity and Justice Watch,” had called on the government to dismiss the “billionaire minister of special needs” in 2016. In a detailed letter, he listed the then-minister of industry’s violations and pointed to Nematzadeh’s wife and daughters’ activities in 10 companies as CEO, president, deputy, inspector, or board member.
Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh recently appeared on the television program “Daskhat” and claimed that they only owned one family company and that their assets were so limited that they had to sell their father’s house to pay off some of their daughter Shabnam’s debts. He made no mention of his son-in-law being on the run or the petrochemical case, but he said that his imprisoned daughter wanted to change her name after her release: “Because wood eats Nematzadeh’s name.”
Source: DW
