Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani was convicted of several corruption and national security offences; on appeal, the sentence to be served was set at ten years, together with financial penalties and disqualification from public office.

Role of the person profiled

Protagonist not prosecuted

The Guardian Council barred Rafsanjani from the 2013 presidential election despite his return having mobilised reformists and moderates. The decision was interpreted as confirmation of his marginalisation after 2009.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Institutional responsibility

The wealth and economic influence of the Rafsanjani family have been the subject of persistent allegations of enrichment through political connections, favouritism and privileged access to assets, contracts or companies.

State of the evidence

Allegations

One month after the disputed presidential election, Rafsanjani used a Friday sermon to declare that the Islamic Republic was experiencing a "crisis", calling for respect for the law, national dialogue and the release of detainees. His intervention was perceived as a direct challenge to Khamenei's position.

State of the evidence

Documented

Legal status — source text

Not applicable

Attribution

Personally implicated

In 2006, Argentine courts issued arrest warrants against several former Iranian officials in the investigation into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA in Buenos Aires. Rafsanjani, President at the time of the attack, was among the officials prosecutors alleged had participated in the decision to attack.

Attribution

Directly implicated

Austrian authorities reopened the investigation into the assassination in Vienna of Kurdish leader Abdul Rahman Qassemlou in 2005. An Austrian Green Party official stated that Ahmadinejad and former President Rafsanjani were central to the new evidence to be examined.

Attribution

Directly implicated

During the 2005 presidential election, Rafsanjani's camp accused the Basij and conservative networks of influencing or intimidating voters in favour of Ahmadinejad. The Interior Ministry announced electoral violations and several arrests.

State of the evidence

Allegations

Attribution

Directly implicated

In the 2000 Tehran parliamentary election, Rafsanjani was initially ranked 29th before being placed 20th following disputed recounts and decisions. Reformists denounced manipulation of the results in his favour. Rafsanjani ultimately declined to take his seat, citing doubts and ambiguities surrounding the election.

Attribution

Directly implicated

At the conclusion of the Mykonos trial, a German court found that the assassinations of Iranian Kurdish leaders in Berlin had been ordered at the highest level of the Iranian state. The judgment identified the "special affairs" committee, comprising in particular the Supreme Leader and the then-President, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, as the political decision-making level.

Person targeted by the proceedings

Iranian agents

Role of the person profiled

Protagonist not prosecuted

An investigative report on the 1988 massacres cites Rafsanjani, then Speaker of Parliament and a senior regime figure, as having stated in 1989 that fewer than a thousand political prisoners had been executed in the preceding months. The wording was interpreted as minimising or justifying the executions.

State of the evidence

Documented

As Speaker of Parliament, Rafsanjani was one of the central figures in the Iranian channel enabling secret contacts with the Reagan administration and deliveries of American weapons to Iran in the context of the Iran-Contra affair. He publicly confirmed Robert McFarlane's secret visit to Tehran.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Political responsibility