Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha

Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha is a former journalist, political activist, and businesswoman . She is married to Mehdi Khalaji, the Libitzky Family Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an advocate of economic sanctions against Iran.[1]

Media activities

She started as a journalist in reformist newspapers in late 1990s,[2] including covering the parliament at Hambastegi newspaper. Later in mid 2000s she directed a news agency linked to Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran, which was headed by Hamid Baghaei, a Vice President and confident to President Ahmadinejad.[3]

Political involvement

As a member of the main reformist party, Islamic Iran Participation Front, she ran an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in Tehran in 1996 Iranian legislative election. In 2008, she switched sides and was endorsed by allies of the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the 2008 Iranian legislative election to no avail.

In 2014, she cofounded Idea Center for Arts and Culture LLC with her husband Mehdi Khalaji and published a web magazine, Ghalamro.[4] The company was dissolved in 2017.[5]

Corruption charges

In two separate cases, she is accused of embezzling public funds in Iran. In 2010, as the international sanctions against Iran intensified, she founded various companies in Iran and Turkey to help Iran bypass the sanctions and sell its petrochemical products.[6][7][8] In March 2019, Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha was formally accused of being involved in a giant embezzlement court case of a value of 6.6 billion EU of the assets of Iran National Petrochemical Company while attempting to bypass Iran sanctions.[9] Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha fled Iran in and took asylum in Canada.

According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sheikholeslami is accused[10] of working closely with Reza Hamzehlou, the then CEO of Iran's Petrochemical Commercial Company[11] which was just privatised by Ahmadinejad's government, to embezzle €6.6b of petrochemical exports under the sanctions. The case is described by Shargh newspaper as the biggest corruption case in Iranian history.[12][13] She is charged with €7,065,529 in one case and $8,710,384 embezzlement in another by an ongoing trial in Tehran.

In another case, Sheikholeslami is accused of receiving funds from Sepanir Oil and Gas Energy Engineering Company, which is owned by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to import goods which she never delivered and escaped Iran to Canada.[14] The amount is not disclosed yet.

Personal life

While being in a political and journalism and trading career in Iran, Sheikholeslami Aleagha changed her lifestyles drastically from wearing Chador, a conservative veil or Hijab type, to being unveiled while pictured abroad after fleeing from Iran. She also got divorced and remarried, latest with Mehdi Khalaji. The interesting point about her brand new life is that she as a 'helping hand to Iranian government in sanctions bypass' is now married to a right-wing political activist vehemently in favor of sanctions against Iran. This contradiction has attracted a lot of attention in Persian language media, describing the couple as 'one makes sanctions and the other, bypasses them'.[15][16][17]


gollark: Now, *technically* I could implement all the filtering and sensor fusion algorithms and calibration myself in python, however no.
gollark: So, I want to read some values from an I2C device. Now, you might think "foolish gollark that's something like 50 lines of python at absolute most", and it is except to get anything but raw values I need to use some on-chip "digital motion processor" which is extremely poorly documented.
gollark: Yes, I was replying to ubq.
gollark: I'm having to edit and use 3000 lines of code I don't understand which is doing low-level sorcery to interface with some hardware.
gollark: What did you THINK horrible constant segfaults meant?

References
  1. "Iran's 'Resistance' Bloc Rises amid New U.S. Sanctions". www.washingtoninstitute.org. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  2. "Iranian news agency joins WFP in fight against hunger". www.wfp.org. Archived from the original on 2010-04-02. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  3. "Iranian news agency joins WFP in fight against hunger". www.wfp.org. Archived from the original on 2010-04-02. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  4. "درباره قلمرو". قلمرو (in Persian). Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  5. "Idea Center for Arts and Culture LLC". opencorporates.com. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  6. "روزنامه رسمی جمهوری اسلامی ایران". www.rooznamehrasmi.ir. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  7. "About - Deniz International Trade Co". 2016-07-26. Archived from the original on 2016-07-26. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  8. "روزنامه رسمی جمهوری اسلامی ایران". www.rooznamehrasmi.ir. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  9. "متهم اصلی پرونده پتروشیمی: همه کارها برای کمک به نظام بود". 9 March 2019. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  10. "کیفرخواست متهمان پرونده شرکت بازرگانی پتروشیمی". www.fardanews.com. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  11. Company, Petrochemical Commercial. "Home". Petrochemical Commercial Company. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  12. "Tehran Court Links Financial Corruption Case To Circumventing Sanctions". RFE/RL. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  13. "رکورد بابک زنجانی شکسته شد". ایسنا (in Persian). 2019-03-09. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  14. "Sepanir | Iran Watch". www.iranwatch.org. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  15. "Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha is at large". www.asriran.com. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  16. "About Marjan Sheikholeslami and her involvement in the embezzlement". Ensaf News (in Persian). NaN. Retrieved 9 March 2019. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. fararu.com https://fararu.com/fa/news/393304/%D9%88%D8%A7%DA%A9%D9%86%D8%B4%E2%80%8C%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%AA%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B4%DB%8C%D8%AE-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%A2%D9%84-%D8%A2%D9%82%D8%A7. Retrieved 9 March 2019. Missing or empty |title= (help)
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