Iran’s judiciary sentences couple to death over corruption
The long arm of the Iranian law has reached the “sultan of cars” and his wife, last in a line of market manipulators sent to the gallows.
An Iranian judge has ordered capital punishment for a man and his wife over multiple corruption charges, on top of them disrupting the country’s auto market.
According to judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Esmaili, the couple were found guilty of money laundering, sabotaging Iran’s forex, and hoarding 6,700 vehicles purchased from Saipa, one of the giant but crisis-hit domestic carmakers. Iranian authorities also confiscated over 24,000 gold coins worth nearly $43 million and over 100 kilograms of gold at the residence of Vahid Behzadi and his wife Najva Lashidaee in the capital Tehran. Under the law, the couple still have the right to appeal the death sentences.
