The hardline Kayhan newspaper which is overseen by Iran's Supreme Leader has yet to comply with a court ruling requiring the return of a sizable tract of public land, according to a whistleblower journalist.
The land dispute involving a body at the heart of Iranian establishment illuminates the controversy around alleged land grabs involving well-connected people and institutions.
Centering on 200 hectares in Damavand near Tehran, the case dates back to 1996, three years after longtime editor Hossein Shariatmadari was appointed as Ali Khamenei’s representative at the Kayhan Institute overseeing the newspaper.
According to the journalist Yashar Soltani, at the time, the government transferred the land for tree farming and grazing. However, subsequent legal changes challenged such allocations.
“On November 25, 1996, Gholamreza Forouzesh, the minister of agriculture, approved the allocation of 200 hectares of land to the Kayhan Institute. The land was intended for the construction of a township to consolidate all of the institute's publications, as well as for a printing house and administrative facilities.
"However, it was later transferred to the institute under the vague and general pretexts of livestock farming,” said a report by Soltani.
A law passed in 2003 mandated that land transfers made after 1985 without provincial commission approvals must be reversed if the intended projects had not materialized.
Following this, the ministry of agriculture pursued legal action in several cases, including the Kayhan land deal.
In 2007, a court ruled that the land deed should be invalidated and converted into a lease, yet the institute has refused to recognize the decision.
Despite the law’s explicit language, officials from Tehran’s Natural Resources Directorate have been unable to enforce the ruling.
Tehran's Friday prayer leader, Kazem Sedighi, another appointee of the supreme leader, has faced scrutiny in the wake of allegations that he and his family purchased a valuable 45,200 sq ft plot in northern Tehran.
Khamenei presents his office as incorruptible and apart from any financial peccadillos of officialdom but is Iran's ultimate source of authority.