February 26, 2021
Mir Ali Ashraf Abdollah Pouri-Hosseini, former head of the Iranian Privatization Organization, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for “failing to meet the formal requirements of the privatization processes during his time in office.”
It was the latest in a lengthening list of corruption convictions since Ebrahim Raisi took over as chairman of the Judiciary early in 2019.
The 200-page criminal charge sheet issued by the Tehran Criminal Court against him says a number of privatization deals reached on his watch were handed over to people without due process and state-owned companies were sold to incompetent or inefficient individuals. The documents did not say that Pouri-Hosseini personally profited by what he did to help others.
Pouri-Hosseini resigned from the IPO August 14, 2019, after having served in the post for six years since September 2013.