Rahim Mashaei Detained for Questioning

Date: 18 March 2018 - 21:46

News ID: ۵۱۳۱۶

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Former vice president Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei was detained by the police for questioning, judicial authorities said.
The office of prosecutor general of Tehran announced that former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chief-of-staff Rahim Mashaei was arrested by the police with a warrant issued by the office.
The statement added that the former official, who is also a staunch ally of former president, has been arrested for investigation.
A few days earlier, Rahim Mashaei had set fire to a court verdict sentencing Hamid Baghaei, another figure in Ahmadinejad’s trilateral alliance, to imprisonment.
Mashaie’s tenure in office was cut short after saying that Iran was a friend of the U.S. and Israeli people.
His detention comes after video uploaded on social media showed Mashaei demonstrating on Thursday outside the British embassy to protest against Baghaei’s incarceration.
Baghaie was arrested on Tuesday to begin serving a 15-year jail sentence that was issued in December when a court found him guilty of embezzlement and illegal business transactions.
ISNA news agency cited Mashaie's lawyer, Mehran Abdollapour, as saying his client was arrested in the evening as he was leaving Baghaie's house.
"My client was probably arrested for having recently burnt a copy of Mr Baghaie's verdict outside the British embassy," the lawyer said.