Speaker Denies Some MPs Received SUVs
TEHRAN -- Iranian parliament speaker Muhammad-Baqer Qalibaf denied Sunday allegations that a number of lawmakers received luxury SUVs to take back their votes for the impeachment of the former minister of industry, mines, and trade.
Qalibaf said the parliament’s Security and the Representatives’ Behavior Monitoring Board had looked into the allegations and concluded that claims about the link between the SUVs and the impeachment vote were purely false.
But he added that relevant authorities had been notified to investigate the offering of the vehicles.
An Iranian lawmaker, Alireza Beigi, earlier claimed that the former Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade, Reza Fatemi-Amin, who was recently impeached at the parliament and dismissed, had facilitated access by a number of lawmakers to luxury SUVs in order to have them withdraw their votes of impeachment.
A special inspector appointed by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi investigated the allegations but then claimed that, while the SUVs had been given to the lawmakers, the development had occurred before Raisi’s administration came into office.
Beigi recently claimed that he was in possession of documents that proved the matter and claimed some of the lawmakers’ relatives, too, had received cars.