Ministry of Oil Concerned About 'Failure to Achieve Certain Claims if Babak Zanjani is Executed'

Hours after the announcement of Babak Zanjani's death sentence, the head of the Ministry of Oil's claims follow-up committee stated that if he is executed, the Ministry will not be able to access Zanjani's assets abroad and its claims. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the spokesperson for the judiciary, announced the issuance of Zanjani's death sentence during his weekly press conference on Sunday, January 22. Earlier, on Saturday, December 3, Gholamreza Ansari, the deputy for supervision and inspection of the Supreme Court, stated that Zanjani's death sentence had been confirmed by the Supreme Court, but the court had overturned the death sentences of Mehdi Shams and Hamid Fallah Heravi, the second and third defendants in the oil corruption case, and referred it to a parallel branch. In this regard, Asghar Hindi, head of the Ministry of Oil's claims follow-up committee, told ILNA news agency on Sunday that Zanjani's assets within the country, valued at less than about 2 trillion tomans, have been transferred to the Ministry of Oil. He expressed concern that 'with the execution of the sentence, the Ministry of Oil will certainly not be able to access part of its claims and assets abroad.' Hindi also stated that Zanjani has 'not cooperated' in returning his assets abroad. Previously, officials from Hassan Rouhani's government, including Bijan Zanganeh, had stated that with Zanjani's execution, the 'black box' of the case would be destroyed and the way to recover the funds would be closed. Hossein Dehdashti, head of the parliamentary follow-up committee for Zanjani's case, also emphasized that with Zanjani's execution, 'influential individuals' and 'behind-the-scenes hands' in this case would be 'forgotten.' The announcement of Zanjani's death sentence also came a week after the return of Alireza Ziba Halat Monfared to Iran, who media outlets refer to as one of the 'main agents' in Zanjani's case. Earlier, Rasoul Kouhpayehzadeh, Zanjani's lawyer, announced that a final decision regarding his client is contingent upon a complete interrogation of the arrested individual. In the indictment, Zanjani is accused of having paid only '160 million euros' out of 2.7 billion euros he was supposed to pay to the oil company, using the remainder for personal affairs. Zanjani and his lawyer have previously promised that the debt to the Ministry of Oil would be paid through individuals abroad, but this debt has not yet been settled. Meanwhile, Zanjani's lawyer reported on Sunday that a meeting was held on January 3 at the Evin Prison prosecutor's office with the presence of his client, a representative of the oil company, a representative of the prosecutor's office, a representative of the National Bank, and a representative of the Central Bank. He added that a foreign bank has expressed readiness to issue a letter of credit worth 2 billion euros for Zanjani's debt under 'certain conditions,' and this issue was discussed in the meeting. According to Kouhpayehzadeh, the Central Bank representative raised objections regarding the conditions of this foreign bank, which were to be addressed through the National Bank. He announced that after 20 days from that meeting, these objections have not yet been communicated. Zanjani's lawyer did not mention the name of this bank, its conditions, or the objections raised by the Central Bank representative.