January 17-2014
. . . called 11 times
President Ahmadi-nejad’s first vice president, often rumored to have been involved in corruption, has acknowledged that he has been interrogated 11 times by the Judiciary.
But Mohammad-Reza Rahimi says no charges have yet been filed against him. He also complains he is unlikely to receive a fair trial in Iran.
Rahimi was first vice president—the government’s day-to-day manager—throughout Ahmadi-nejad’s second term, from 2009 until last August.
Rahimi has long been rumored to have some involvement in a corruption case revolving around one of Iran’s insurance companies.
Last week, Majlis Deputy Ali Motahari accused the Judiciary of lacking independence and asked why accusations against Rahimi were never pursued.
Tehran prosecutor Abbas-Jaffar Dolatabadi responded that the Judiciary had long been investigating Rahimi and that he was out on bail. Dolatabadi gave no details on the substance of the investigation.
Rahimi’s lawyer confirmed to the Fars news agency that Rahimi was out on bail, but denied the investigation had anything to do with the corruption case of the Iran Insurance Co.
Rahimi told Fars that he had so far kept silent about the investigation, but said, “For the last two years, during 11 sessions, for 55 hours, I was interrogated.” That meant the probe began in the middle of his term as vice president.
Rahimi criticized the prosecutor for publicly speaking about his case since it was still under investigation and no indictment had been issued—although the prosecutor only spoke up to deny Motahari’s charge that Rahimi was getting special treatment.
Rahimi said the case against him was “political.” President Ahmadi-nejad and his Administration were frequently at odds with the Judiciary.
Rahimi said the statements by the prosecutor caused concern among his friends and family. He said he was also upset that the corruption accusations were aired on television because his mother has suffered heart attacks while his wife has had two coronary operations.
“A court case has to be convened and I will present my explanations,” he said. But he also complained that he was unlikely to receive a fair trial in Iran: “The only court in which there is not even a small amount of injustice is divine justice because we are all Muslims and the absolute ruler is God.”
Rahimi said that all of his problems began once he became vice president, and that he never had any other trouble before that.
Rahimi, 65, is a Kurd born in Kurdistan province, but also a Shiite. He served in the Majlis from the first election after the revolution until 1992 and was governor general of Kurdistan from 1993 to 1997 under President Rafsanjani. He was out of government during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, but returned as deputy to President Ahmadi-nejad for legal and parliamentary affairs in Ahmadi-nejad’s first term before rising to first vice president in the second term.
At an international anti-drug conference in 2012, at which at least 10 Western diplomats were present, Rahimi delivered an anti-Semitic speech, blaming the Talmud for the spread of illegal drugs worldwide. Rahimi said the Talmud teaches “how to destroy non-Jews so as to protect an embryo in the womb of a Jewish mother.” He said “Zionists” control the illegal drug trade and said the “proof” was that there is not “one single Zionist who is an addict.”
The New York Times, which covered the conference, further quoted Rahimi as saying Zionists ordered gynecologists to kill black babies and that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was started by Jews.
Rahimi has claimed a doctorate from Oxford University, but Oxford says he does not appear in its records.