Akbar Atbai Tabari (), (born February 9, 1961) is an Iranian politician who served as Deputy Chief of the Judiciary of Iran and a senior financial and administrative official in 2009. He was also involved in leading several bribery and money laundering networks.
Early life and education
Akbar Tabari was born on February 9, 1961, in Babol, Iran, to Iranian parents of Mazandaran origin. He came from a religious Shia family living in Mati Kola, a village in Mazandaran Province, northern Iran.
Tabari is a graduate of engineering. He also holds a bachelor's degree in architecture from Shahid Rajaee University of Tehran.
Career Tabari was the Director General of Finance and the Deputy Chief of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, serving as the head of the Judiciary during the presidency of Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi and Sadegh Larijani, respectively. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Kung Fu and Martial Arts Federation.
Arrest Tabari was arrested by the IRGC Intelligence Organization in Amol on July 13, 2019. Tabari is named as a first-degree defendant in the indictment. In July 2019, there was a debate about corruption in the judiciary. Sadegh Larijani had supported Tabari during his 20 years in the judiciary, when he was the Director General of Financial Affairs and the Executive Deputy of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic and was accused of several counts of bribery. On the same date, Sadegh Larijani’s office announced that “some of the accusations made against the Executive Deputy of the Presidency had previously been investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office and were proven false,” and that Larijani, who was the head of the Judiciary, had independently investigated the accusations and “they were proven to be false.”
Trial and imprisonment On June 8, 2020, the first trial of Tabari and several other defendants in collaboration with him, including Bijan Ghasemzadeh (a former media prosecutor who had issued the Telegram filter order and sentences against Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tatalo in Iran), was held, during which the prosecutor's representative accused the defendants of "forming a network of several people in bribery."
On September 12, 2020, Tabari was sentenced to 31 years in prison for “leading” a bribery network and “taking multiple bribes.” He was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for money laundering. He was also sentenced to “permanent dismissal from government service,” “seizure of assets resulting from taking bribes,” and a fine of 120 billion tomans. Tabari was released from prison on bail of 300 billion tomans. Mohammad Ali Dadashi, Tabari’s former lawyer, said about Tabari’s case: “They told a person who could have received the death penalty but was initially imprisoned for 31 years and has now been released, that you should be grateful to your lawyer, but Tabari said that my case was not something a lawyer could solve; the advice of officials, such as Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, and the money that Rasoul Danialzadeh spent, solved my problem.
Death of daughter The body of Tabari's daughter, Samaneh Atbai Tabari, an anesthesiologist, was found in a villa in Lavasan in August 2026. Unofficial sources claim that she had been hanged there. Unofficial reports say that the location where the body was discovered was not a place she usually frequented. The only public comment on the matter was made by Farhad Teymurzadeh, her physician and colleague. In a message on social media, Timurzadeh wrote: "I think this incident once again showed the weakness of psychological support and the ineffective ways in which universities and families approach these issues, where censorship and deletion have replaced finding the cause.
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