Ahmadinejad’s VP a fraudster

Mowjcamp’s latest special report has been dedicated to the role of Ahmadinejad’s new First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi in numerous corruption cases. The cases are related to different time periods during which Rahimi undertook position in the governments of Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani, the previous Parliament, and the Azad University under the supervision of Jaspi.

Previously various reports from different news outlets including our own, had pointed out the cases of fraud and plagiarism among Ahmadinejad’s ministers, however this time it seems that Rahimi has had a history of administrative corruption in addition to his fraudulent academic “credentials.”

The report included allegations of stealing land from a University, while held position in the city of Sanandaj. He later assumed position as the governor of Kurdistan Province in the early 90s when Rafsanjani was in his second term as Iranian President. According to sources supporting the current coup government, during Rafsanjani’s visit to his province, Rahimi ordered farmers to place their tractors in a way that would read phrases in praise of Rafsanjani. During the same trip, Rahimi even kissed the hand of Rafsanjani. In the Presidential elections of 1997 when Mohammad Khatami became president, Rahimi was a strong supporter of Nategh Nouri (Khatami’s opponent) and following the elections of that year, a series of election fraud cases related to him were compiled.

Rahimi who had supported Rafsanjani during the presidential elections of 2005, later became the head of the monitoring arm of the parliament however he did not believe in “monitoring” and quickly let his personal friendships influence his job which was to identify and prevent corruption from taking place in the government. A year after Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005, he invited him to deliver a speech to the heads of the bureaus under his supervision. In that gathering, Rahimi surprised everyone by publicly acknowledging that he “was prepared to cooperate with the government in any way” and even stated that “during last year’s gathering, I presented statistics of infractions related to the previous [Khatami] government, however in this gathering I will not release such statistics [about Ahmadinejad’s government] and I am certain that the in new government which is full of valuable ministers and managers, infractions will reduce dramatically!”

The meeting is full of pledges made by Rahimi to “open-up ties in executive matters” and expressed that his “deep belief” is that he “must cooperate with this government more than the previous ones” and that he was sure that “this government is committed to service.” In other words, Mr Rahimi awarded Ahmadinejad with the monitoring arm of the Iranian Parliament which is meant to monitor the conduct of the government.

However, Rahimi’s admiration for Ahmadinejad does not stop there. He later called his bureau “a part” of the government and offered to “resolve” any “executive” problems with it. He continued to praise the government as though he were part of it and even boasted about gifts he had received in his trips to Turkey and Syria, as a result of Ahmadinejad’s popularity and his stance against America. “They even invited us for tea and ice-cream” and “respected us because of you” as we walked through the streets of Halab. Rahimi fully implements the practice bootlicking, as he promises that his “bureau will be at the service” of Ahmadinejad. “We will be at your side and will do so with great determination.”

“In the historic city of Basra, a Muslim told me that he believed that if a prophet were to appear after Muhammad, it would be Ahmadinejad.”

But there’s more. When Ahmadinejad took office, he appointed Rahimi as his Vice President in legal and Parliament affairs and stated at his introduction ceremony that he had actually planned to give him a position in the Ministry of Interior but had refrained from doing so after great opposition towards this appointment. “Mr Rahimi never set hurdles in the way of the government,” Ahmadinejad told those who were present.

But as the fraud scandal surrounding the PhD degree of Ali Kordan’s (Ahmadinejad’s former Interior Minister) became the hot topic of Iranian politics, Rahimi’s name was brought about once again. As MPs exposed Kordan’s fake degree from Oxford, Rahimi made relentless efforts to calm down the opposition and even did an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency IRNA, in which he claimed that he had sent a special representative to London to investigate the allegation of forgery and the representative had discovered that amazingly all the documents related to Kordan’s degree had been recovered from the internet database of Oxford University and that Kordan’s certificate had been sent to Tehran via the Iranian Embassy. “I personally saw the documents!” This interview was removed from IRNA’s website after the forgery had been acknowledged by everyone. This “document” that was seen by Rahimi was published, but it was nothing but a forged piece of paper full of grammar, spelling and other mistakes. Rahimi then attempted to bribe MPs by paying them each close to $5000 in the name of “financial aid” in order to deter them from supporting Kordan’s impeachment. This was uncovered by other MPs and it caused MPs to protest Rahimi’s interference in the affairs of the Parliament, however Ahmadinejad reiterated his support for his loyal servant.

This Rahimi’s incredible support for Kordan raised suspicions about the authenticity of Rahimi’s own academic degree which was very much similar to Kordan’s and he had used to teach at a University too.

After his appointment as First Vice President, the issue of his academic degree was raised. An MP preferred to avoid commenting about Rahimi’s fake degree and said that “there is no degree required for the Vice President according to the law” and another stated that he was “not going to go public about the reasons for his inadequacy.” Another senior MP commented on the issue by saying that “Rahimi himself knows about his fake degree.”

Rahimi has also been summoned to court for 2 cases of acquiring illegal funds and illegally possessing state property but has yet to appear in court, even after receiving a warning. However, he is still loose like the many fraudsters and criminals in Ahmadinejad’s government who walk freely today.

With the long list of fraudsters and plagiarists among Ahmadinejad’s closest associates becoming even longer, the lingering question is: who is next?