Four Sentenced to Death Over Iran Bank Fraud

It seems like everyone hates bankers these days, but the punishments meted out in a massive banking scandal in Iran would seem extreme, even to the most radical Wall Street Occupier.

Four people have been sentenced to death for their roles in Iran’s biggest-ever bank fraud scandal and ten others sentenced to decades in prison for a fraud scheme involving loans worth more than $2 billion.

The scandal even threatened to engulf Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose economy minister Shamseddin Hosseini narrowly survived an impeachment vote in November.

Muhammad Sahimi is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California; he’s also a journalist who writes frequently on Iran for the website Tehran Bureau.

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Aaron Schachter: I’m Aaron Schachter and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. It seems like everyone hates bankers these days, but the punishments meted out in a banking scandal in Iran would seem extreme, even to the most radical Wall Street occupier. Four death sentences and 10 others sentenced to decades in prison for a fraud scheme involving loans worth over $2 billion, billion with a “b.” Earlier in the year the scandal threatened to engulf Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose economy minister narrowly survived an impeachment vote. Muhammad Sahimi is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. He’s also a journalist who writes frequently on Iran for the website Tehran Bureau. Dr. Sahimi, can you put this into the Iranian context for us. What do these convictions and punishments mean in Iran?

Muhammad Sahimi: What has been happening is these symptoms of vast corruptions that have been happening in Iran ever since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. When he was running for president in 2005 one of this main themes was he would combat and root out corruption, but what has been happening is exactly the opposite. And this basically provides more ammunition for Ahmadinejad’s opponents in the parliament and elsewhere to basically blame him for whatever wrong has been done, has been happening in Iran over the past several years,

Schachter: So they wanna try and take him down, but isn’t it possible that for that very reason the charges are trumped up?

Sahimi: Well, we don’t know exactly whether the charges are trumped up or not simply because although many accusations have been made against his senior aids, none has been actually charged, but the Iranian mass media did publish several letters signed by his chief of staff to several heads of banks and other organizations asking them to treat favorably the people who were involved in the corruptions and have been convicted today.

Schachter: Now my impression is that we in the West are always shocked by the support that Ahmadinejad has and has had over the years. Is this scandal eroding support for the president?

Sahimi: Actually, his support has been eroding since the past few years, but as these financial corruptions come to surface and as the scale of corruptions become clearer, he has been losing support even among poor people who basically make his base of support because people can see that one, his economic policy hasn’t resulted in lowering the inflation and increasing the employment. His senior aids have been involved in these last corruptions that seem to only benefit very few people.

Schachter: I wonder if part of the problem there is the same problem here in Europe, bankers are just so despised that any scandal involving banks, you know, gets people very upset.

Sahimi: Well, that’s part of the problem. The other problem is that most banks in Iran are nationalized and controlled by the government, they are not private banks. So for example, when you have an administration like Ahmadinejad, that has been for example, granting large contracts to favorite corporations that are linked with his senior aids and these are all done behind the scene, then we get the problems that they are grappling with right now.

Schachter: Mm-hm, Muhammad Sahimi writes for the website Tehran Bureau.

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