Social Security: Babak Zanjani Has Not Yet Delivered the Organization's Checks

Despite more than a year having passed since the arrest of Babak Zanjani, a billionaire and businessman close to the Ahmadinejad government, the head of the Social Security Organization states that the organization's "checks" are still "with Mr. Zanjani and have not been delivered to the organization." According to a report on Friday, April 23, from the Iranian Labor News Agency, ILNA, Taghi Nourbakhsh, the head of Social Security, emphasized in an interview with the magazine "Atieh No" that the organization's "checks" were used as "guarantees for Babak Zanjani's financial operations." Mr. Nourbakhsh stated that the "financial regulations" of the Social Security Organization have been violated in the case concerning Babak Zanjani. Meanwhile, Saeed Mortazavi, the former CEO of the Social Security Organization, has repeatedly insisted that during his management, he committed "no violations" and that his actions were legal. ILNA had previously reported that Saeed Mortazavi, the former head of the Social Security Organization, issued an order to transfer 138 companies of this organization to Babak Zanjani and provided him with five "guaranteed" checks amounting to 442 billion Japanese yen, equivalent to four million euros. In this context, Hossein Dehdashti, the head of the Iranian Parliament's investigation committee into the Social Security Organization, stated in December 2014 that these checks were in the possession of the Ministry of Oil. Subsequently, some members of the Iranian Parliament announced that Babak Zanjani had given the "guaranteed" checks received from the Social Security Organization in place of his debt to the Ministry of Oil. However, Mr. Nourbakhsh, referring to "some resistances" against the judicial proceedings of this case, said: "I am very sorry that some individuals whose actions should be judged by the country's judicial system hastily and unilaterally judge themselves and consider themselves free of any wrongdoing...." Babak Zanjani, who is said to have cooperated with the Iranian Ministry of Oil during the Ahmadinejad government in selling oil and transferring the money into the country after the intensification of international sanctions against Iran, was arrested in January 2014 on charges of failing to pay his debt to the Ministry of Oil and was transferred to Evin Prison. In this context, Gholamhossein Esmaeili, the head of Tehran's judiciary, announced on April 20 that Mr. Zanjani's case is at the Tehran prosecutor's office and has not yet gone to court. Bijan Zangeneh, Iran's Minister of Oil, stated on Tuesday, April 14, that Mr. Zanjani never intended to pay his $2.7 billion debt to the Ministry of Oil.