Reuters: Four former Iranian officials, including one who held a key Oil Ministry position and an ex-customs director, have been jailed for up to five years for taking bribes and embezzlement, the judiciary said on Tuesday. TEHRAN (Reuters) – Four former Iranian officials, including one who held a key Oil Ministry position and an ex-customs director, have been jailed for up to five years for taking bribes and embezzlement, the judiciary said on Tuesday.
Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said those convicted also included a former sales executive of state-owned Iran Khodro, the region’s biggest car maker, and a former state bank employee, but declined to give their names.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 promising to root out corruption. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has previously also ordered a crackdown on graft in the world’s fourth-largest oil producer.
Jamshidi said a former director of an Oil Ministry unit for legal affairs involved in contracts was jailed for four years and fined a total of around $700,000, both in rials and U.S. dollars, on charges of accepting bribes and commissions.
A former deputy head of a Bank Mellat branch was sentenced to five years imprisonment and fined 440 million rials ($47,000) while the ex-Iran Khodro executive received eight months in jail and a fine of 100 million rials.
Jamshidi also said the former customs official, who was a director of international affairs, was jailed but did not say for how long. He was fined 230 million rials.
He did not say when the four convicted ex-officials held office.
