Iran jails appliance plant officials for bribery

An Iranian court has jailed a former general manager of Arj, Iran's largest appliance manufacturer, for 15 years and given seven others shorter prison terms for graft, newspapers reported yesterday.

The court ordered former general manager Abbas Dadgar to pay more than $12 million in fines for graft, embezzlement and mismanagement at the state-run company, the evening newspaper Kayhan reported. Dadgar was also banned from holding government posts for 10 years.

Six other men and a woman, mostly company officials arrested with Dadgar in December 1999, received jail sentences ranging from six months to five years and were ordered to pay smaller fines, the newspaper said. Six defendants were acquitted.

Arj, set up in the 1960s, was nationalised after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The firm was partially floated on the Tehran stock market in 1994 by the government industrial body which had a majority stake.

The sentences came as Iran is launching a new drive against widespread corruption in its state-dominated economy after a call by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Economists have said that a similar campaign launched in 1997, which led to the arrest of several Tehran city officials and wealthy real estate developers, had scared away investors.

The reformist government of President Mohammed Khatami has repeatedly called for the creation of safe conditions for private investment to lift the economy from recession. Reformists have accused conservative-led courts of targeting pro-reform officials in the anti-graft drive, a charge denied by the judiciary.