Iran businessman must pay $145 mln in graft case
TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian appeals court said on Monday that a prominent businessman convicted of corruption must serve 11 years in jail and ordered him to pay $145 million to the state and one of its banks, Iranian media reported.
Shahram Jazayeri was sentenced in 2002 to 27 years in prison, the first high-profile conviction in a crackdown on graft ordered by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
His sentence was later reduced to 14 years. It was not clear whether Monday's verdict meant a second cut in the initial jail term or whether it took into account time already served.
Officials were not immediately available for comment.
Jazayeri briefly escaped from a Tehran jail in February 2007 but was rearrested four weeks later. The incident prompted the dismissal of four senior judiciary officials, media reported.
At the time of his conviction six years ago, conservative newspapers accused him of paying off some 60 reformist MPs in parliament. But moderates said hardliners were being selective in their anti-corruption campaign and only targeted reformists.
Prosecutors charged Jazayeri, a former adviser to parliament's economic commission, with fraudulently receiving state credits, paying 38 billion rials ($4.1 million) in bribes, cheating banks and interfering in import and export deals.
Of the amount he was ordered to pay, $48 million would go to state-owned Bank Melli and the rest was a fine, the ISNA news agency said, adding Monday's verdict was final.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 vowing to clamp down on corruption and share out oil wealth more fairly in Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer.
(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Hashem Kalantari; Editing by Catherine Evans)
