' fill='%230E4F97'%3E%3Cg id='Group-5' transform='translate(370.000000, 11.000000)'%3E%3Cg id='avatar' transform='translate(6.000000, 4.000000)'%3E%3Ccircle id='Oval' cx='8' cy='4' r='4'%3E%3C/circle%3E%3Cpath d='M7.12864205,10 L8.87135795,10 C11.558649,10 14.0087196,11.5384024 15.1762205,13.958831 L16,15.6666667 L16,15.6666667 L15.3374858,17.5134983 C15.228016,17.8186575 14.9774027,18.051811 14.6651459,18.1389975 L8,20 L8,20 L1.33485405,18.1389975 C1.02259733,18.051811 0.771984007,17.8186575 0.662514216,17.5134983 L0,15.6666667 L0,15.6666667 L0.823779545,13.958831 C1.99128041,11.5384024 4.44135104,10 7.12864205,10 Z' id='Rectangle'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/g%3E%3C/g%3E%3C/g%3E%3C/g%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Brother of Iranian senior vice president gets 2 years in jail for corruption
Mahdi Jahangiri sentenced for ‘professional currency smuggling’ of €607,100 and $108,000, also fined quadruple those sums; court decision cannot be appealed
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has sentenced the brother of the country’s senior vice president to two years in prison on corruption charges, the website of the Iranian judiciary reported Tuesday.
According to the judiciary’s spokesman, Gholamhossein Esmaili, the verdict for Mahdi Jahangiri, the brother of Eshaq Jahangiri, is final and cannot be appealed.
Mahdi Jahangiri was on the board of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce and was also the founder of the private Gardeshgari Bank.
Esmaili said charges against the banker included “professional currency smuggling” in the amounts of 607,100 euros and $108,000. Mahdi Jahangiri was also ordered to return the funds and fined four times the amounts in question.
Jahangiri was arrested in October 2017 and released on bail in March 2018, pending trial. Few details of the case have since emerged in public, though his brother Eshaq Jahangiri was quoted at the time of the arrest as saying that Mahdi’s detention was “predictable” and “expected” and that he hoped “everyone will be treated equally in the quest for justice.”
In October 2019, President Hassan Rouhani’s brother, Hossein Fereidoun, was sentenced to five years on financial misconduct charges dating back to 2016.
The charges against Fereidoun were brought by hardliners who dominate Iran’s judiciary. Iran has in the past jailed allies of former presidents on similar charges.
Tensions between Rouhani and Iran’s hardliners escalated further after former President Donald Trump pulled America out of the 2015 nuclear deal and stepped up economic sanctions on Tehran.
