Akbar Tabari, a senior official in Iran's judiciary, has been released from prison after serving less than three years of a 58-year sentence for serious financial fraud.
The news was confirmed on June 28 by Gholamali Mohammadi, the head of Iran's Prisons Organization, during a program on Iranian state television.
Tabari, who held senior financial and executive positions within the Iranian judiciary for nearly 20 years, was arrested in July 2019.
He was eventually sentenced to 31 years in prison for leading a bribery network and receiving multiple bribes, 12 1/2 years for money laundering, and more than 15 years for other undisclosed crimes.
Mohammadi stated that Tabari's release was due to a "judicial authority's decision within legal parameters," a reference to Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of Iran's judiciary.
Iran is one of the world's most corrupt countries, according to Transparency International, which ranked it 150th out of 180 countries in its 2021 Corruption Perception Index.
Tabari's release has raised questions about the fairness of Iran's judiciary in cases involving high-ranking officials.
Unlike the immediate review and severe punishments meted out to opponents of the regime, including those arrested in the recent nationwide protests, the process of reviewing the charges of officials and their affiliates is often slow, and the execution of the sentence is usually suspended after a short period of time.
Mohammadi also confirmed the release of Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former prominent Iranian politician Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Mohammad Ali Najafi, the former minister of education and a former mayor of Tehran.
Hashemi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 50 lashes in 2015 for "participation in bribery, embezzlement, assembly, and collusion to commit crimes against the country's security."
Najafi, who was released in April this year following a "leader's pardon," was sentenced to five years in prison after killing his second wife in June 2019. His sentence was annulled after he paid a sum of money to the victim's family.
Iran has recently executed at least seven anti-government protesters in hasty trials, triggering strong condemnation from human rights activists and numerous Western governments.
Critics have labeled these legal proceedings as sham trials, citing issues of inadequate legal representation and rushed decisions made behind closed doors.