Tehran Prosecutor: 10 Bank Sarmayeh Debtors Arrested

Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran prosecutor, in response to the publication of a list of major debtors of 'Bank Sarmayeh' without mentioning any specific names, stated that 10 of these debtors are currently in custody. According to ISNA, on Sunday, December 10, Mr. Dolatabadi mentioned that the managers of Bank Sarmayeh are not cooperating with the prosecutor's office; otherwise, many of these defendants would have been under judicial investigation. A week prior to these statements, Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, published 'details of debts and specifications of 20 major debtors of Bank Sarmayeh from 2006 to 2016' on Twitter and wrote that the judiciary is lenient with these debtors. However, the Tehran prosecutor rejected these statements, saying that 'pursuing banking arrears is not necessarily the inherent duty of the prosecutor's office, as merely having large loans in arrears does not constitute a crime; rather, the prosecutor's office's duty is to combat banking crimes, including arrears obtained through false documents, the establishment of shell companies, or through favoritism.' Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi further described the case of Bank Sarmayeh debtors as 'a symbol of economic corruption' and stated: 'In November 2016, Bank Sarmayeh submitted its list of debtors to the Tehran prosecutor's office, and currently, 10 individuals related to these debtors are in custody. Some of these individuals, due to legal restrictions, cannot have their identities disclosed, were released by court decision, but were re-arrested following an objection from the prosecutor's office and its acceptance in court. Therefore, the claim that the judiciary has not taken action is unfair.' The list published by Mahmoud Sadeghi includes 20 names, while the Tehran prosecutor claims that the list provided by Bank Sarmayeh to the judiciary contains 31 names. Mr. Dolatabadi also mentioned that the total debt of these debtors amounts to 8 trillion tomans. The list published by Mahmoud Sadeghi includes the name of Hossein Hedayati, a well-known investor in football, who has taken loans seven times over a ten-year period, totaling over 1 trillion tomans.