How to defeat Allah

"Chief financier Ayatall", who believed that Allah has favored his business, is now waiting for an execution in a Tehran prison

In Iran, in the near future, a 41-year-old billionaire Babak Zanjani, who was arrested in 2013 and was then considered the richest man in the country , found guilty in the “spread of corruption on Earth” may be executed. His fortune was estimated at about 13-14 billion dollars. The mortal sentences of Zanjani and two more defendants were carried out last Sunday, and they still have several days to appeal the verdict. In the west, Babak Zanjani became very famous during the presidency in Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad. He was suspected of actions that helped Tehran bypass international sanctions and sell oil abroad . However, after the new President Hasan Rukhani, who promised mercilessly destroying all corrupt officials in Iran, turned away from Zanjani turned away. Many Iranians, however, believe that the billionaire sentenced to death could not appropriate state money and give bribes alone and without the protection of the highest leaders of the country.

Babak Zanjani, before the arrest, constantly repeated that he owed his success to Allah and luck. His business empire Sorinet Group included 65 companies in Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Tajikistan. Zanjani had a wide range of interests - from cosmetics, hotel business and transport to construction and banking services. He owned the Rah Ahan football club and invested in projects of Iranian cinema. A few years ago, Zanjani often went to Tajikistan, where he invested large funds in the bus station, hypermarket and construction business in Dushanbe. Babak Zanjani lived mainly in the UAE or Turkey and always insisted that he was not engaged in politics.

Throughout the world, the name of this Iranian magnate became widely known at the end of 2012, due to Western economic sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program. Zanjani brought to the black lists of the European Union and the United States for "a key role in evading these sanctions." The EU considered Zanjani "the main mediator in Iranian oil transactions and secret transfers of money associated with oil." Zanjani, who called himself an "economic basis" in honor of the Iranian half -nuclear volunteer police, rejected these accusations, not paying attention to his name in the black lists. But soon, in an interview with the Iranian media, he admitted that in 2010 he agreed to fulfill the request of the Central Bank of Iran to help translate the necessary oil revenues to the country. The single billionaire comes from a modest family, his father worked on the railway. According to him, he received the first experience in business as a driver of the head of the Central Bank of Iran - before moving to Turkey, where he made a fortune.

Babak Zanjani the day after the arrest. December 31, 2013

Less than a year before the arrest of Zanjani, which occurred on December 30, 2013, a scandal broke out in Iran, indicating a billionaire with politicians. In January 2013, the then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused his political opponent Ali Laridzhani, at that time, the speaker of the parliament , of receiving bribes from a certain Mr. Z, abstaining from the disclosure of the full name. However, soon a video and several photographs appeared on the Internet, in which Zanjani was captured in the company of Iranian officials, including Fasel, brother of Laridzhani. Zanjani dismissed the accusations of giving bribes, saying that the meeting with the Larijani Phevian was random. Pictures on his Facebook page show him playing on a violin, on a motorcycle or in restaurants with his friends participating in various meetings traveling, visiting building facilities and distributing interviews.

For a long time, Babak Zanjani contained in the infamous Evin prison in Tehran. The Iranian Supreme Court said that the National Iranian Oil Company Zanjani was instructed to export oil worth more than three billion dollars - and, according to prosecutors, the young billionaire then appropriated more than 2 and a half billion from the sale of this oil. Earlier, Iran’s parliament accused Zanjani of inability to return state money. The arrest of Magnat was preceded by the promise of President Hassan Rukhani to fight financial corruption, especially among "privileged persons", which benefit from economic sanctions.

Babak Zanjani in court. October 2015

On March 6, the trial in Tehran in the case of Zanjani and his two assistants came to an end - all three were sentenced to death by hanging for the “spread of corruption on Earth”, which, according to the Iranian Criminal Code, is considered a serious crime against Allah , leading to the decomposition of the society of believers. Zanjani, in addition, ordered to return to the treasury all the money that, as the court considered, he abducted, plus another quarter of this amount. This was stated by the head of the Supreme Judicial College of Iran Gulyamkhussein Mokhseni-eji :

- The court of first instance recognized Mr. Babak Zanjani and two more defendants guilty of criminal behavior, contrary to the laws of God and the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and announced its verdict, according to which all three were sentenced to death.

Conservative Iranian media reacted to news of the end of this loud trial, just reprinting the text of the sentence, but more moderate publications devoted all the first lanes to him, publishing huge photographs of Babak Zanjani with calls to the court also all his environment and the related former senior government officials from the government of Mahmadinezhada.

Ahmad Alavi , an Iranian economist and lawyer living in Stockholm, in an interview with Radio Liberty emphasized that in the Islamic Republic of Iran no one could create a business empire of such a scale without the original help and patronage emanating from the very top:

Public execution in Iran

- In Iran, as in Russia, you cannot come to the chiefs engaged in oil and say: "I am a business person, give me access to the oil reserves of our country, and I will lead my business." The government in Tehran used dozens of Iranian businessmen operating in the Middle East and Southeast Asia in order to avoid Western sanctions, to sell oil for solid currency. They made "offers that cannot be abandoned." And Zanjani was only one of many. During the period of high oil prices, the turnover of all this shadow business was estimated at tens of billions of dollars a year.

Shortly before the verdict, Babak Zanjani addressed a letter to the members of the Iran parliament, in which he emphasized that he was proud of his country in difficult times, when the Iranian economy was experiencing a crisis due to confrontation with the West, and that only the severity of foreign sanctions prevented him from returning all income from the sale of state oil to his homeland.

There are several more days left to appeal the verdict at Zanjani. If they refuse to pardon him, he will share the fate of another Iranian billionaire, Mahafarid Amir Khosvra, executed in 2014 on the same charges - for God -proof corruption.