Another financial corruption case in Iran goes to court with a debt of "14 trillion tomans"
Another corruption case in Iran went to court on Wednesday, March 12, and the first defendant in it, Amir Hossein Azad, son of Ali Mohammad Azad, former governor of Sistan and Baluchestan, Hamedan, and Ilam provinces in the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been named.
In a report, the IRNA news agency named Hassan Qaryani, Mohammad Bahrami, and Ehsan Heydari as the other three defendants in the case, calling their charges "corruption on earth through major disruption of the economic system with knowledge that the measures were effective."
These individuals are accused of collecting deposits from 91,000 people by creating two financial institutions, Alborz and Vali-Asr. Alborz had a turnover of about 46 trillion tomans between 2012 and 2017, and Vali-Asr had a turnover of about 17 trillion tomans between May 2015 and March 2017.
IRNA news agency says that about 14 trillion tomans of Alborz Institute's obligations and about 259 billion tomans of Vali Asr Institute's financial obligations to depositors have not yet been paid and remain.
The Revolutionary Court, headed by Judge Salavati, has now taken on the task of handling the complaints of 6,36 depositors, and the case under review has 353 volumes.
The aforementioned report adds that Hassan Rouhani's government, by creating a credit line of 700 billion tomans, assigned the two banks, Tejarat and Keshavarzi, to settle depositors' claims.
Tejarat Bank has so far paid 630 billion tomans to 16,200 depositors of the Alborz Institute, and Keshavarzi Bank has paid 135 billion tomans to 15,000 depositors of the Vali Asr Institute and settled accounts with them.
Economic corruption cases in Iran have increased at an unprecedented rate in recent years, and most of the defendants in them committed "crimes" during the eight-year presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This comes at a time when Mr. Ahmadinejad has consistently described his government as the “cleanest” in Iran, coming to power with the slogan of fighting corruption, justice, and putting money in people’s pockets and on their tables. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, has also called his government “the best government to emerge in the country since the beginning of the constitutional era.”
Currently, at least 10 economic cases are being heard in Iranian courts simultaneously, including the cases of Alborz and Vali Asr, "Corruption in Petrochemicals," "Hossein Hedayati," "Iranian Development Fund," and "Capital Bank."
Financial and credit institutions, many of which are affiliated with or close to military, law enforcement, or prominent clerics in the Islamic Republic, have faced a crisis in the past few years, and those who lost money and had deposited money in these institutions held large gatherings in various cities in Iran.
As Sadegh Larijani, the former head of Iran's judiciary, said on July 23 of this year, Hassan Rouhani's government has paid "30 trillion tomans" from the public budget to the victims to prevent this issue from turning into a larger crisis.
Source: Radio Farda
