Ahmadinejad Writes Again to Ali Khamenei Regarding Baghaei

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, has protested in a letter to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic regarding the new prison sentence for Hamid Baghaei, the executive vice president of the tenth government, and has called for a retrial in this case. The Telegram channel "Bahaar," which is close to Ahmadinejad, reported on Tuesday, September 10, that Hamid Baghaei, who is currently in prison, has been sentenced to an additional six months of imprisonment. The report states that the criminal court branch 1059 sentenced him to six months in prison for insulting individuals and officials following the release of a video of his remarks outside Evin Prison, and this ruling can be appealed within twenty days. Baghaei, who has been tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison and a fine of 43 billion tomans for "embezzlement and illegal appropriation of state assets," referred to Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, and Hossein Taeb, the head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, as "oppressors" at the end of his short-term release in early August, expressing hope that the time for their trial would soon come at the hands of the Iranian people. He also assured that "the gentlemen are going to leave and are taking their last breaths." In his letter to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ahmadinejad described the "double imprisonment" sentence for Baghaei as "contrary to citizens' rights and prison regulations" and wrote that the Supreme Leader is "well aware of the injustice" that has been done to Hamid Baghaei. He mentioned that "for more than twenty days, [Baghaei's] phone contact with his family has been cut off, and his legal leave has also been suspended." The former president of Iran then requested that Ali Khamenei instruct judicial officials to accept Baghaei's retrial request and take action to restore his phone contact and legal leave. Ahmadinejad had previously requested the Supreme Leader's intervention in this case in a letter in early Farvardin (March) and claimed that "the judiciary arrested him without any evidence or legal basis." Earlier, in Bahman (January), he had written another letter to Khamenei stating that the Larijani brothers had inflicted "irreparable damage to the trust of the people, the revolution," and the parliament and judiciary. Another figure close to Ahmadinejad currently in prison is Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, his former chief of staff, whose second trial session was recently held. During this trial, the judge asked Mashaei to explain his connections with "British spies." Ahmadinejad has called this trial a show.