Iran opens trial of ex-judiciary deputy head

TEHRAN: -Iran opened the high-profile trial of a former senior judiciary official alongside 21 accused accomplices on Sunday in Tehran, charging them with corruption, money laundering and influence trading.

In a rare move state television broadcast the hearing live, focusing on the accused Akbar Tabari, the former deputy head of administrative affairs at the judiciary. Tabari “obstructed the execution of justice” against influential senior Iranian officials “by forming a criminal group” within his office which “became a centre... for certain accused (individuals) to settle their cases”, his indictment said, according to official judiciary news agency Mizan Online. Tabari and 21 other defendants were tried by the 5th chamber of Tehran´s criminal court, presided over by judge Hassan Babaie. The former official worked as the financial director during the mandate of Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who headed Iran´s judiciary from 1999 to 2009.

Tabari was later promoted to the head of executive affairs and then executive deputy under Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani from 2009 to 2019, according to state news agency IRNA. In March 2019, Iran´s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei replaced Larijani with Ebrahim Raisi, a religious conservative, and called on him to work “against corruption”. According to IRNA, Raisi “dismissed Tabari eight days after taking office”, without specifying a reason.—AFP