Iranian parliamentary corruption scandal implicates notorious figure
A report implicating Iranian parliament members and newspaper editors singles out Saeed Mortazavi, a notorious figure within the Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to the Iranian parliamentary report, corruption was widespread in the Social Security Organization during the administration of Tehran's former Prosecutor-General Saeed Mortazavi. It included, among other officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a notable number of members of parliament (MPs) and several editors of Reformist newspapers.
The 84-page report by the Special Parliamentary Probe Committee includes 37 cases of bribery and illegal handouts. One such case entails 1.335 billion rials "taken from the internal budget of the organization after being authorized by the head of the organization, and was given to 37 MPs [report included code numbers but no actual names] as gift cards [on April and May] of this year."
As expected, parliament has not named the MPs who received these gift cards. A political observer in Tehran told Al-Monitor that this is “a disaster,” given the number of MPs it potentially implicates. “Even if we assume that no other MP has received bribes, the number mentioned in the report is high enough. It means that one out of every seven MPs has been bribed by Mortazavi," said the observer. Iran’s parliament has 290 members.
Mortazavi has a long and controversial career in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
