A former Iranian minister has been sentenced to three years’ jail for corruption, state media reported on Wednesday, citing the judiciary, in a rare conviction of a senior government official.
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“Following a trial, former agriculture minister Javad Sadatinejad was sentenced to three years in prison,” chief justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, quoted by the official Iran newspaper.
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Sadatinejad, 51, was agriculture minister from August 2021 to April 2022, when he resigned after the case came to light. He had previously been a deputy for the central city of Kashan.

The minister had been prosecuted as part of a major corruption case linked to the import of livestock supplies into Iran, for which 10 people have already been convicted. He can appeal the ruling.
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The judiciary also said two former ministers had been summoned and 45 other people charged in another corruption case, worth $3.7 billion, involving one of Iran’s biggest tea trading companies.

In September 2020, a former high-ranking judicial official, Akbar Tabari, was jailed for 31 years for corruption, one of the heaviest sentences handed down to a former official in the Islamic republic.
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