January 03-2014
An Iranian businessman linked to the “Setad” conglomerate controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi is wanted by the United States for trying to smuggle US assault rifles into Iran, the Reuters news agency reported last week.
Reuters recently wrote a lengthy expose of how the Setad seizes property in Iran to put extensive economic power in the hands of the Supreme Leader, much as the Pahlavi Dynasty amassed power by seizing property. (See Iran Times of November 22, page six.)
Last week, Reuters pointed to Behrouz Dolatzadeh, a major figure in Khamenehi’s conglomerate, and said he was arrested in the Czech Republic last year. He was convicted in June of attempted arms trafficking and attempting to violate UN sanctions on Iran. But he was released in September after an appeals court overturned his conviction and the United States failed to request his extradition, Czech officials told Reuters.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s office in Phoenix, Arizona, where Dolatzadeh was indicted, declined to comment on why no extradition request was ever filed. Dolatzadeh’s defense lawyer in Prague, Michal Marini, told Reuters he believes Dolatzadeh is back in Iran.
Iranian corporate filings show Dolatzadeh was appointed in recent years to the boards of three tech companies connected to a massive business empire controlled by Khamenehi, the Setad Ejrai-ye Farman-e Hazrat-e Emam, known familiarly as the Setad.
A Setad spokesman said none of the companies on which Dolatzadeh was appointed as a board member “is owned directly or indirectly by Setad or any of its entities.” But documents reviewed by Reuters and Iran corporate filings show that the companies Dolatzadeh joined are connected to each other through their boards, and are all linked to Setad.
Those companies include Mobin Khavar Technology Co, which is a subsidiary of a Setad holding called Iran Mobin Electronic Development Co, according to corporate filings, Iran Mobin’s website and internal Iran Mobin documents reviewed by Reuters.
Dolatzadeh also joined the boards of Mobicom and First Mobin Saba Services Co, according to corporate filings. Those two companies are joint ventures between Setad and the Pasdaran.
Dolatzadeh was indicted in February 2012 by a federal grand jury in Arizona on charges that he tried to export 3,500 M-4 assault rifles to Iran in violation of US export laws. That would also be a violation of UN sanctions on Iran.
Dolatzadeh agreed to travel to the Czech Republic to inspect the rifles before they were shipped to Iran, according to the indictment. He was arrested there in February 2012.
A Czech court convicted him on local charges of attempted arms smuggling and UN sanctions violations and last June sentenced him to 3-1/2 years in prison, according to a spokeswoman for the municipal court in Prague. But in September, he was freed after an appeals court overturned the conviction, ruling it was a case of entrapment by US and Czech authorities who had lured Dolatzadeh to the Czech Republic to commit a crime.
Reuters said the Arizona case apparently is not the first time Dolatzadeh was indicted in the United States for attempted smuggling. In 1995, Behrouz Dolatzadeh, identified as an official with Iran’s Ministry of Defense, was one of seven people indicted by a federal grand jury in Ohio for trying to ship US-made radio communications equipment to Iran. The spokesman for the US Attorney’s office in Phoenix said prosecutors there believe the Ohio case involved the same individual indicted last year.
