Police Found Guilty of Bribery

Police officers were among 21 people convicted on bribery charges at a Khorasan Razavi provincial court hearing in early March.

Judge Heydari oversaw the trial, which ruled that 16 officers and five other police personnel had taken bribes in connection with a series of drugs convictions in 2013.

Investigations into the 2013 seizure of 500 grams of heroin in Mashhad were marred by corruption, the court heard. Police officers and employees let some suspects go free or agreed to change statements in exchange for cash.

“Following the investigations and confessions by some of those arrested, a number of civilians were also arrested. They revealed several other related crimes,” reported Khorasan newspaper’s Saeed Khalil Sadjadpour.

The investigation team, which carried out its work at the office of the general prosecutor for the province, sent evidence to the Public and Revolutionary Court. The military general prosecutor’s office carried out a further investigation.

The court handed down a range of sentences to the convicted officers, including imprisonment, lashes and fines equivalent to the money they received; several officers were dismissed or demoted. Lawyers acting on behalf of some of the accused appealed, but Mashhad’s Court of Appeal stayed the verdicts. 

Read the original article in Persian