Iran, apparently, takes billionaire criminality much more seriously than we do.

[Lizzie Poppet]

In America, billionaires who corrupt the system for personal gain are supported by their paid-for sockpuppets in office. In Iran...not so much. I oppose capital punishment, but still think this is better than our approach (given the incalculable human misery that severe wealth concentration and the evaporation of the middle class have caused).

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35739377

[Human101948]

1. Good thought but this is probably motivated by someone who wants to take his wealth...

and appropriate it for their own friends and family. Notice that he did a service for his country by evading the embargo. Now he is no longer useful so someone in power decided to get rid of him.

[Lizzie Poppet]

5. That could very well be the case.

I suspect Iranian internal politics are labyrinthine.

[Wounded Bear]

8. All politics are labyrinthine...

If you research back into our own Salem witch trials of the late 1600's, you'll find some interesting facts about how the property of the witches was dispensed with.

Oh, and some of the familial relationships were rather interesting, too.

[Dustlawyer]

2. We are more civilized, we only execute poor people who cannot pay to mount a defense

against their charges!

An example, my wife was recently hired by the Texas Public Defenders Office which was finally opening an office in our county. They were waiting on office renovations at the courthouse so they could move in and get started. Then she got the call telling her there would be no job. It seems that the local Tea Party government thought it would be better to use the new space to EXPAND THE D.A.'S OFFICE instead! Yea, let's make room to prosecute more people rather than make the system somewhat more fair to the accused!!!

Constitution be damned, right to a fair trial is not important anymore!

[Lizzie Poppet]

4. Definitely don't support the death penalty, only actually holding billionaires accountable.

Capital punishment has no "do over" button and is inequitably applied. I'll never support it. But I do like the notion of 1%'er criminals (if this case is legit...Human101948 pointed out that the charges coudl well have dubious motivations) being held accountable.

[SCantiGOP]

3. Well bless their heart

I guess we can learn a lot from our Islamic Republic friends.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. Persia was a country of laws, binding even the king, 3000 ears ago. Read

the Book of Esther in the Old Testament : the passage concerning Ahasuerus' (Xerxes) wife, and what he was to do with her, after she refused to attend a banquet he intended to put on. We must be living in the most degenerate time in the history of the planet.

[tblue37]

7. China executed 2 honchos it held responsible for the adulterated milk scandal that

led to baby deaths. However, the country's main concern was that other countries started banning food imports from China because political corruption meant that their products' safety could not be trusted. A couple of high profile executions were intended to act as "proof" that other countries could trust them to root out and punish such corruption. Several other individuals got long prison sentences (some even for life):

A number of criminal prosecutions were conducted by the Chinese government. Two people were executed, one given a suspended death penalty, three people receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms, and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), being fired or forced to resign.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Criminal_prosecutions

[Kang Colby]

9. He helped Iran evade oil sanctions, and then he ran out of usefulness for them.

Meanwhile, the Iranian government treats women like cattle and executes homosexuals.

[Oneironaut]

10. And homosexuality, apostasy, insulting their sky fairy, and protesting.

Punishing greed and corruption is good for a society. Imposing executions for it is grotesque and immoral. Iran is a hell hole. This poor guy must have pissed the wrong people off.

[Lizzie Poppet]

11. That's basically my point: even a country like THAT punishes criminal billionaires.

But I certainly agree that what really may get the guy executed isn't so much his criminal behavior but his annoying the wrong people or just not being useful any more. That's a fair point.