Iran Arrests Fugitive Businessman Accused Of Corruption

Iran says it has arrested a fugitive businessman charged with financial crimes and accused of ties to President Hassan Rohani's brother, who has been imprisoned for graft.

Rasoul Danialzadeh "returned to the country under the guidance...of the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence agents," judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said on November 13.

Esmaili said Danialzadeh was "not detained abroad" and "had accepted to return to the country."

Danialzadeh owed 40 trillion rials ($340 million) to banks before fleeing Iran, the spokesman said, adding that the businessman had ties with Rohani's brother, Hossein Fereidoun.

Fereidoun is serving a five-year jail term in a corruption case that he claimed was based on an "illegal" wiretap and orchestrated by hard-liners trying to discredit him.

Rohani has accused the hardline-led judiciary of dealing with corruption along factional lines.

Fereidoun and his brother do not share the same name because Rohani, who is considered a relative moderate within Iran's political system, changed his surname decades ago.

With reporting by Reuters