Iran’s former president faces cases over ‘interventions’ in forex, stock markets

Iran’s former President Hassan Rouhani faces new cases in a special prosecutor’s office for the clergy over his “interventions in foreign exchange and stock market,” a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday.

Addressing a weekly news conference in the capital Tehran, Massoud Setayeshi said Rouhani is a cleric, and cases against him have been filed in the special prosecutor’s office in line with the relevant jurisdiction.

He did not provide details of the cases filed against the former president.

Rouhani, a reformist political figure, served as the president of Iran for two four-year terms between 2013 and 2021. He was succeeded by Ebrahim Raisi, a former judiciary chief, in August 2021.

During its second term (2017-2021), Rouhani’s government was widely criticized for its interventions in the foreign exchange market as the value of Iran’s rial tumbled against the US dollar.

During this period, Iran’s currency saw more than 10-fold devaluation, fueling record inflation.

In May last year, a senior lawmaker was quoted as saying by the semi-state Mehr News Agency that foreign exchange interventions during the Rouhani government “led to the increase in inflation and liquidity.”

He informed at the time that the case had been referred to the judiciary, asserting that the former president was warned that the injection of currency into the market would spur inflation and liquidity.

The lawmaker also referred to interventions in the stock market, terming it “another economic mistake” by the previous government that resulted in significant losses to those who had invested in stocks.

The former reformist president is also facing cases pertaining to projects in the oil and gas industry.

In 2019, Rouhani’s brother Hossein Fereydoun was also sentenced to seven years on charges of corruption, which was later reduced to five years.