Member of Parliament: Suspension of a Police Commander Due to Oil Debt

A member of the Iranian Parliament announced the issuance of a suspension order for a former senior official of the police force due to the "oil debt" of this force to the government. According to a report on Thursday, July 15, from the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), Mohammad Hosseini, the representative, stated in an interview with the news agency that the police force owes the government more than 600 billion tomans. This member of the Parliament's Program, Budget, and Calculations Commission added that between the years 2008 and 2012, at the order of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, oil was "exported by the police force... and its resources were brought into the country and spent within the same force." According to Mr. Hosseini, the police force is therefore "indebted to the government for approximately 6,336 billion rials," and the Court of Audit has introduced the then senior official of this force as a "violator" to the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Audit due to this debt. This representative added that after reviewing the case, the Court of Audit found him guilty and issued a "suspension order" for him. During Ahmadinejad's second presidential term, due to an 11% budget deficit of the police force, he ordered that this force secure part of its necessary expenses through oil sales. The former police commander at that time was Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam, who was briefly detained on charges of financial corruption and failure to deposit oil sale proceeds into the oil company’s account during his command. ISNA reported in June 2015, citing the newspaper Qanoon, that Mr. Ahmadi-Moqaddam denied his accusations and also the news of his house arrest, along with that of his son and son-in-law, in a television program. The website 'Kalemeh' also reported prior to this televised interview about the discovery of a financial corruption ring in the Cooperative Foundation of the Islamic Republic Police (NAJA), which, according to this website, Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam was also involved in. Ahmadi-Moqaddam stepped down in Esfand 1393 (March 2015) while still having a few months left on his extended term. 'Kalemeh' also reported that in addition to Ahmadi-Moqaddam's two-day detention, at least 12 senior officials of the NAJA Cooperative Foundation, including Brigadier General Abolfazl Ghanbarpour, the former CEO of this foundation, are implicated in this case. The NAJA Cooperative Foundation is one of the largest semi-state economic holdings in Iran, operating in a wide range of sectors from banking and insurance to oil, gas, energy, construction of docks and roads, import and production of clothing, beverages, foodstuffs, mining, and hospitality. This information emerged while the media reported that a kind of "information trench" had been created around this case to prevent any information from leaking out. In this context, questions arose about why Ahmadi-Moqaddam left. The police spokesperson stated that individuals related to the NAJA Cooperative Foundation case had been arrested. Ahmadi-Moqaddam is linked to economic mafia and judicial crises. Jahangiri stated that no institution returned even one dollar of oil sales to the government. The Parliament approved a bill to address the "oil violations" of Ahmadinejad's government, and 13 trillion tomans of violations from Ahmadinejad's government were "returned."