Iranian Parliament Reviews Ahmadinejad-Linked Corruption

Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s Plan and Budget Commission Golamriza Tacgerdun revealed on Tuesday that mounting suspicions against ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are enough to take to court.

A state audit department report published earlier ensures Ahmadinejad’s involvement in “financial violation”.

Tacgerdun said Ahmadinejad had committed “serious violations” during his presidency, according to a report by the Iranian Audit Bureau, the body which oversees budget spending.

“The Audit Court has the capacity to make a case, it is natural that the judiciary investigates the case, but we have not reached that stage yet,” Tacgerdun explained, according to the Iranian labor news agency (Ilna).

The Iranian MP’s comments came a week after the parliament published a report of the Prosecutor General of the Iranian Court of Auditors, accusing Ahmadinejad of “violations” involving over 4,600 billion Iranian Tomans. The report demands that Ahmadinejad makes a financial compensation.

Ahmadinejad was president for eight years serving between 2005 and 2013, after being re-elected in July 2009. He sparked protests by the reformist Green Movement after candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi rejected Ahmadinejad’s win, accusing the authorities of rigging election results.

According to ICANA news agency, the report said the violation occurred during Ahmadinejad’s term when his office wired money obtained from oil revenues and transferred them to the state treasury.

There were also irregularities in oil imports, it said.

The agency stated that the irregularities were found during a parliamentary budget audit of 2016.

Ahmadinejad’s former vice president and close aide, Hamid Baghaei, was sent to prison in 2015 on unidentified charges. He was again behind bars over corruption allegations from July 9 of this year until his release on bail on July 26.

More so, Tacgerdun said Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani had ignored the revealing reports which make a strong case against Ahmadinejad.