The Guardian Council spokesperson said if the allegation made by former vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi against members of the Majlis are proved right by the relevant authorities, the supervisory body would take proper action.
Nejatollah Ebrahimian told IRNA on Sunday, “Obviously the Guardian Council cannot remain indifferent toward allegations of corruption, that’s why if such allegations are proved by the concerned bodies, we will take the necessary action.”
In a letter to former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week, Rahimi claimed that about 170 candidates running for the 8th parliament (2008-2012) received over ten billion rials in campaign contributions.
Rahimi, who served as vice president from 2009 to 2013, was a close aide and confidant of Ahmadinejad, who left office in mid-2013 after serving two terms.
A week earlier, the Supreme Court handed down a five-year jail sentence for Rahimi and ordered him to pay about $1.3 million in fines. After being subject to lengthy judicial investigations into his alleged role in several high-profile bribery and embezzlement cases, he was indicted in March last year.
A preliminary court had initially given him a 15-year prison term, but the Supreme Court commuted the sentence. The former official has denied all the charges. His lawyer has said he will appeal against the verdict.
The claim by Rahimi outraged MPs with some them demanding the names of those who had allegedly taken donations be made public.
ISNA reported on Jan. 18 that about 30 lawmakers had signed a petition calling on Rahimi to make public the names of the MPs he claimed had received aid. But later IRNA reported that the parliamentarians decided to withdraw the petition due to concerns that it might lay the blame on the sitting parliament despite the fact that the allegation is related to the previous parliament.
In a new development on Sunday, about 20 lawmakers in separate letters called on Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani and Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani to launch probes into the allegation and announce the names of those parliamentary candidates who have received funds from Rahimi.
