Lashing, Death Ordered for Iran Multimillionaire

An Iranian multimillionaire who headed an organization to help families of Iran’s war dead was sentenced to death for fraud and 74 lashes for adultery in Tehran today amid a postwar crackdown on high-level corruption.

Tehran’s First Criminal Court also ordered Ali Mousavi of the private Nabovvat Foundation to pay $17.8 million to 17 creditors, according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Mousavi also was found guilty of an “illegitimate sexual act” with a woman identified only as Azar B, the agency reported. The couple were sentenced to 74 lashes each by the judge, a middle-ranking clergyman identified as Hojatoleslam Jalal Mousavi.

Iran’s Supreme Judicial Council, headed by Ayatollah Abdulkarim Musavi Ardebili, must ratify the sentence.

The crackdown on corruption, which was rampant during the 8-year war against Iraq, comes as the government moves to loosen social, political and economic restrictions after the hardship and sacrifice of the war years.

It also is aimed partly at luring home tens of thousands of educated exiles who the Tehran hierarchy hopes will help rebuild the country after the war.

Ardebili has declared repeatedly that lawlessness and the excesses of revolutionary police and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are among main obstacles preventing many of the estimated 2 million emigres from returning.

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini last month called for a campaign “to rid the people of leech-like elements affiliated to the government and the bazaar . . . to end rip-offs and hoarding in government and private enterprises.”