Abbas Palizdar, a member of Iran’s Majlis Investigative Committee recently disclosed issues about the country’s judiciary that is interpreted to be unprecedented in recent years from the perspective of individuals named and also the level of allegations. Palizdar, made the expose by naming individuals with court cases involved in economic corruptions.
Here are the three most prominent cases.
- The unlawful take over of four large mines in the country by one of the longest running cleric members of the powerful Guardians Council which is entrusted with vetting the candidates to the Majlis, the presidency and Experts Assembly on Leadership (which monitors and plays a key role the selection of Iran’s Leader). These political institutions also play a role in ensuring that individuals they approve for public office are free from “economic corruption“.
- The unlawful seizure of “Dena tire” company by the secretary of Iran’s most important clerical political organization (Jame Modaresin Hoze Elmie Qom – Teachers Association of Qom Theological Center). This person also holds key positions in the Guardians Council and the Experts Assembly on the Leadership Council, and used to be the head of Iran’s judiciary. Palizdar asserts that this manufacturing plant had a real market value of 600 billion Toman (about $600 million) while this high-ranking ayatollah acquired it for a mere 10 billion Toman ($10 million), 80 percent of which was paid by installments and the remaining 20 percent paid up in cash which was secured through the sale of the assets of the company after it was possessed. The company was subsequently sold by its new owner at its market place.
- A bribe offering for 700 billion Toman ($700 million) by the top “Sugar Mafia” leader in Iran by the name of “Modalal” in an effort to stop an investigation into his dealings. He is a son-in-law of one of the greatest ayatollahs in the country (i.e. ayatollah Makarem Shirazi).
In my last article in Rooz titled “The Race to Publish Classified Information” I raised the unprecedented race going on between the neoconservative allies of the president of Iran (who are close to the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards) and their rivals inside the conservative movement to disclose classified information. This race has provided an exceptional opportunity for the public to learn of secret documents, dealings and events behind the scenes in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This most recent expose by some one who used to be a pro-president candidate for the position of Tehran’s city council, is a unique event from the list of exposes and counter-exposes of the president’s allies and his rivals since he took office in 2005. This expose has a very definitive angle: it is targeted at those rivals of the president who are knows as the “conservative right” (older conservatists with close ties to the clergy).
This latest expose carries precise and detailed information that includes names of many great ayatollahs (who during the Experts Assembly refrained from towing the list of pro-Ahmadinejad candidates and instead supported the two lists of key cleric organization, Jame Modaresin Hoze Elmie Qom and Jame Rohaniyat Moarez). But it is noteworthy that even in this expose whenever it is time to see details about the key allies of the president, the revelations end, and so either names are not mentioned or details are not provided. In fact, in Palizdar’s disclosure no mention is made of the country’s largest economic unit, i.e. the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards. When it is mentioned, the reference is indirect and in very general terms.
For example, while discussing the helicopter crash of the former Passdaran army commander Palizdar responded in these words to a question about the air crash: “From what appears in the evidence one may conclude that the incident was a planned event in which one of the then commanders of the Passdaran was involved”. Unlike other earlier revelations (in which even names of top Guardian Council members were mentioned), no names were put forward for the commander who was murdered. And even though he stresses, regarding the air crash of Rahman Dadman, the minister of transportation during Khatami’s administration, that “In Dadman’s case the event was pre-planned, according to the 1000-page dossier”, no mention, even an indirect one, is made of any names that had a hand in this sabotage and crime, while it is not hidden from the public that Dadman’s principal conflict at the ministry of transportation was with the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards.
It is clear that these latest round of exposes against the senior traditional right-wing clerics are not the product of a “sudden emotional sense” of one conservative personality regarding economic corruption. It is also naïve to believe that this expose at this level is all-revealing or contains all the details, and has been carried out without prior coordination with others, which includes the consequences of the eye-opening exposures.
One thing is irrefutable: The game of revelations by the competing conservative factions inside the regime is getting out of control. They cannot continue without very serious and even dangerous repercussions.
But while making predictions for events in Iran is usually unproductive, one may expect soon to witness unexpected response these games of revealing “the secrets of the regime”.
