Iran's crackdown on corruption reaches elites
The Iranian judiciary seems to have gotten serious about fighting corruption with speedy trials and harsh verdicts for powerful businessmen once thought untouchable.
Iran's judiciary has announced numerous prison sentences for a large number of defendants charged with "disrupting the country's economic order."
The rulings announced July 30 include prison terms of up to 20 years. In one case, more than a dozen public servants working for a government institution in the northern Gilan province were found guilty of embezzlement and bribery. And last week, 19 individuals received a combined 150 years over the notorious corruption case involving Padideh Shandiz, an enormous economic project in the conservative northeastern city of Mashhad.
But what most gripped the public attention was the controversial case of Hadi Razavi, the 35-year-old son-in-law of Mohammad Shariatmadari, a veteran Reformist politician currently serving as minister of labor in President Hassan Rouhani's administration.
Razavi has been handed a 20-year prison term without the right to appeal after being convicted of multiple fraud charges. When Razavi's trial kicked off, it reignited furious public debates on decades of cronyism in the Islamic Republic, where well-connected individuals abuse power for massive profiteering. According to prosecutors, the young tycoon received millions of dollars in loans without any collateral and lavished public funds on fancy cars and luxury tours across Europe.
