Hamid Reza Bagheri Deramani, the 'Tar Pitch King,' Executed

The Tehran Public and Revolutionary Court announced that the execution of Hamid Reza Bagheri Deramani, known as the 'Tar Pitch King,' was carried out in the early hours of Saturday, December 22. Bagheri Deramani was sentenced to death for corruption on earth through the establishment of a fraud and bribery network, as well as restitution of 1,087 billion tomans. Following an appeal by Bagheri Deramani's lawyer, the case was sent to the Iranian Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling of Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran. According to the Mizan news agency affiliated with the judiciary, Bagheri Deramani's case file and those related to him consisted of 156 volumes and over 25,000 pages. The charges against the 'Tar Pitch King' were examined in the Tehran Public and Revolutionary Court based on complaints from the Jey Oil Refining Company, Bank Melli, Bank Gardeshgari, Novin Economy Exchange, and Saman Majd. The accusations against Bagheri Deramani included corruption on earth through fraud by creating a multi-person network as the leader, fraud against Iran Insurance Company, and fraud involving Bank Melli. Bagheri Deramani, in collusion with his associates and through bribery and collusion with experts, inflated property values and presented them to banks, including a property valued at approximately 40 billion tomans that was inflated to 127 billion tomans through bribery and collusion. He also resorted to document forgery to obtain loans from banks, including a forged document from Bank Gardeshgari to secure a loan of six billion tomans. According to Judge Abbasi, the investigator of Bagheri Deramani's case, he also had various judicial files related to smuggling and money laundering of astronomical value, as well as cases of overdue loan repayments and gold bar smuggling. The charges against Bagheri Deramani were reviewed in nine sessions at Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Mohammad Salavati, leading to his death sentence. During the investigation of Bagheri Deramani's charges, reports emerged linking him to Babak Zanjani, another imprisoned economic corruption suspect, which Bagheri Deramani denied. In the sessions examining Babak Zanjani's charges, Bagheri Deramani's name frequently came up, including claims that he had planned to defraud Zanjani before his arrest by informing him of an impending arrest and offering to help him escape for a fee of 10 billion tomans, a plan that reportedly failed. A week before Bagheri Deramani's execution, some Iranian news agencies reported the failure of a plot to help him escape. In this context, Mehr News Agency reported that individuals involved in the escape plan had been arrested. The Saham News website also published a file attributed to Hamid Bagheri Deramani, in which he claimed to have been a victim of a political game involving 'Mr. Larijani and Ahmadinejad.' Saham reported that behind the execution order for Hamid Bagheri Deramani, known as the Tar Pitch King, was the revenge of Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, against this suspect. Bagheri Deramani had previously been convicted in 2006 and 2009 in other cases. In 2006, he was sentenced to confiscation of goods and a fine of 1.1 billion tomans for smuggling, and in 2009, he was sentenced to thirteen months in prison and restitution to the plaintiffs regarding a loan of approximately 9.9 million dollars obtained from Bank Markazi, Bank Sepah, Bank Keshavarzi, and Bank Melli. In November of this year, Vahid Malakoutian, known as the 'Coin King,' and his accomplice Mohammad Ismail Qasemi were executed in Tehran on similar charges of corruption on earth.