Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has agreed to a request by the head of Iran’s judiciary to set up special courts to swiftly deal with financial crimes in gold coin trades and foreign exchange dealings.

In a letter to Khamenei, judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani called for permission to set up the courts due to what he described as “an economic war.”

Iran’s economy is in turmoil and its currency has been in free fall since US President Donald Trump imposed new sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Judiciary’s proposal

Larijani proposed in his letter that new courts be set up for two years and ordered that maximum sentences should be handed down to those “disrupting and corrupting the economy.”

The letter asked for trials to be held in open court and that all court rulings except the death penalty be final, with death sentences subject to appeal at the Supreme Court within a maximum of 10 days.

Arrests

Dozens of people have been arrested for disrupting the forex and gold coins market in the last few months as the value of the Iranian rial plummeted

According to Tehran police chief, General Hossein Rahimi, one man and his accomplices have been arrested for collecting two tonnes of gold coins over several months in order to manipulate the market.

These crimes are reported to have been motivated by criminal opportunities opened up by the record devaluation of the Iranian currency which has lost nearly two-thirds of its value since the start of the year.