Ex-researcher says has irrefutable evidence on corruption
Published: Tuesday, June 10, 2008
15:30GMT—11:30AM/EST
IRAN – CORRUPTION
Washington, 10 June (IranVNC)—The former investigator at the Research and Investigation Committee of the Majlis, who has caused a political uproar in Iran by his recent revelations about widespread and deep-rooted corruption at high levels of public office, has himself come under fire on charges of corruption.
Some government-affiliated media have launched a counter-offensive against Abbas Palizdar who has accused over 50 high-ranking clerical and political figures of embezzlement and unlawful self-enrichment.
According to the semi-official Fars News Agency, Palizdar has defaulted in repaying a bank loan he obtained to expand a small dairy business in 1995. His claim of having been the secretary of the legislative oversight body that is responsible for check-and-balance interaction between the Legislature and the Judiciary, too, has been questioned.
Kargozaran Newspaper, the organ of a party of the same name linked to the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Tabnak website, affiliated to Mohsen Rezai, secretary of the Expediency Council, both of whom are named as top culprits, have called for Palizdar’s arrest and claim that he has a political axe to grind and that he has been unhappy because of his defeat at the Tehran municipal elections last year on Ahmadinejad’s ticket. This riposte has been parried by Raja News website, close to President Ahmadinejad, publishing the list of his faction’s candidates which did not include Palizdar as a candidate.
Palizdar, however, has stuck to his guns and touts the extensive evidence he says he has secured on the wrongdoings of the personalities he has accused -- evidence which he has promised to divulge further. He cites the top inspectorate administration and also the legislative investigation committee as sources for the information he has garnered and organized in the form of over 120 dossiers. He claims he has more evidence and has threatened to publish these later on.
Palizdar’s sensational revelations were made in two speeches he delivered at the Students Islamic Society of Bu’ali [Abu Ali Sina] University in Hamedan, on 3 May and at a similar gathering at Shiraz University on May 27. Strangely, the revelations received partial and couched exposure on the students' sites only and did not make a big splash until last weekend.
Some analysts believe he is doing President Ahmadinejad’s bidding in decrying the vested interests that hamper his government’s efforts to run the country. The president complained with tears in his eyes recently that whenever he tries to launch reforms he sees powerful hands obstructing his moves.
The fact that none of the ayatollahs and high-ranking politicians clearly named and attributed have yet to respond to the accusations is taken as tacit admission that the revelations are true and documented. What is happening now is that some media with ties to the state have been seemingly mobilized to orchestrate a defamation campaign against the whistle-blower, who has spilled the beans all over the administration.
Palizdar is getting increasing exposure by the international media, including Radio Farda [REF/RL] that has aired an interview with him. He laments in his interview that so many crimes are being committed against the people who have made sacrifices and been martyred for their country.
The many well-known personalities he has named have made the revelations the most rattling in more than three decades. The most prominent of those named in the disclosures, is the former president, Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who currently holds one of the most sensitive positions in Iran’s theocracy, namely, the chair of the Expediency Council and the head of the Assembly of Experts – both veto-holding positions.
Palizdar has also accused Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, chief of the Judiciary, of protecting highly placed, financially corrupt individuals and making investigations and dispensation of justice difficult or impossible.
Sources: Kargozaran Newspaper, Radio Farda, Hamedan University Islamic Students Association weblog, Fars News Agency, Iran Newspaper, Man-va-Shoma website
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