Iran ex-minister sentenced to jail for graft: state media

TEHRAN: A former Iranian minister has been sentenced to three years’ jail for corruption, state media reported on Wednesday, citing the judiciary, in a rare conviction of a senior government official.

“Following a trial, former agriculture minister Javad Sadatinejad was sentenced to three years in prison,” chief justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said quoted by the official Iran newspaper.

Sadatinejad, 51, was agriculture minister from August 2021 to April 2022, when he resigned after the case came to light. He had previously been a deputy for the central city of Kashan.

The minister had been prosecuted as part of a major corruption case linked to the import of livestock supplies into Iran, for which 10 people have already been convicted. He can appeal the ruling.The judiciary also said two former ministers had been summoned and 45 other people charged in another corruption case, worth $3.7 billion, involving one of Iran’s biggest tea trading companies.In September 2020, a former high-ranking judicial official, Akbar Tabari, was jailed for 31 years for corruption, one of the heaviest sentences handed down to a former official in the Islamic republic.