Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Multi Millionaire Mullahs: Plundering a Nation's Wealth

“Iranian Mullahs stash millions as their people struggle to survive,” CNN reports.

“24 years from the revolution, the mullahs have miserably failed to create this so- called idyllic society they were so emphatically referring to. Instead, Iran is in the throes of the biggest political, social, and economical crisis of its recent history,” says Peyvand, an Iranian popular news website.

“The ayatollah's denials will do little to dispel the widely-held view in Iran that a new class of millionaire mullahs are plundering the riches of the country,” Iran Voice reports.

The Mullahs in Iran keep adding up to their wealth endlessly. That is while the gap between the poor and the rich is getting bigger and bigger, and all the nations’ wealth is being circulated in the hands of a few people, mainly Mullahs, and all with high ranking governmental posts.

One of the people very interested in disclosing the Mullah’s financial abuse was the famous Russian Paul Klebnikov.

Klebnikov, the former Chief Editor of the Russian edition of Forbes Magazine, was shot to death in Moscow less than two years ago. Investigations are still on going.

Klebnikov was a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the London School of Economics.

Klebnikov was also the author of the book Millionaire Mullahs, which according to the Winds of Change news weblog “Tore the lid off of the organized corruption that lies behind the terrorist theocracy of Iran.” In the book he wrote:

A looming nuclear threat to the rest of the world, Iran is robbing its own people of prosperity. But the men at the top are getting extremely rich.

Soon after, Klebnikov reveal the illegal financial activities of the Grand Ayatollah Rafsanjani, perhaps the richest man serving the Islamic corrupt regime. He wrote:

The 1979 revolution transformed the Rafsanjani clan into commercial pashas. One brother headed the country's largest copper mine; another took control of the state-owned TV network; a brother-in-law became governor of Kerman province, while a cousin runs an outfit that dominates Iran's $400 million pistachio export business; a nephew and one of Rafsanjani's sons took key positions in the Ministry of Oil; another son heads the Tehran Metro construction project (an estimated $700 million spent so far). Today, operating through various foundations and front companies, the family is also believed to control one of Iran's biggest oil engineering companies, a plant assembling Daewoo automobiles, and Iran's best private airline (though the Rafsanjanis insist they do not own these assets).

Since Klebnikov’s death, there has always been this debatable issue wether the Iranian authorities had ordered his murder or not?

“Given their frequent practice of assassinations abroad, it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility,” Winds of Change suggests.

Seriously, what options does the free world have in order to prevent such rebellion regimes from continuing their terror and curroption?

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