Saturday 24 May 2014

Iranian Billionaire Executed.

 
I read this news article in the Voice of America newspaper. It is about an Iranian businessman who swidled Iran's top intitutions out of over £2 billion. If he had done such a thing in the UK, I doubt if anything would have been done. Maybe a big newspaper and tv news scandle and a court case costing further millions, making him more of a celebrity by the end of it.
 
I don't agree with hanging people for this type of crime, but it does seem a contrast to what this fraudster would have got in our more tolerant courts. I was shocked at the execution, but I would not want stand upon a soap box to protect him either (supposing him guilty.) There are far more deserving cases then such greedy men.
 
In Europe, no doubt, he would have quietly left his nation state, layed low for a while, and then cropped up in the EU parliment as one of those unelected members. He might have become friends with Peter Mandleson.
 
Sorry, just me having a rant.
 
From Voice of America
 
The billionaire businessman who was the mastermind behind Iran's biggest fraud case was hanged Saturday in Tehran.

Authorities say Mahafarid Amir Khosravi was put to death at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison.

Khosravi was found guilty of having used forged documents to obtain credit at Iran's top financial institutions in the $2.6 billion scam. He bought numerous assets, including a steel company.

At least 20 other people were arrested in connection with the scheme.  Most are facing lengthy prison sentences, but at least three have received death sentences.

One of the suspects in the case fled to Canada. Mahmoud Reza Khavari, a former chief of a major Iranian bank, is on the Islamic Republic's most wanted list.

The trials raised questions about corruption at senior levels in Iran's tightly controlled economy during the administration of its former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who dismissed the allegations as a smear campaign conducted by his opponents.

No comments: