The Muslim Times’ Editor has added a question mark in the Title, for we do not have any independent verification of this information.
Ayatollah Khamenei has been found to control a financial empire worth an estimated £60 billion, which includes businesses as wide-ranging as an ostrich farm and a birth control pill factory
By Robert Tait, Middle East Correspondent
9:17PM GMT 12 Nov 2013
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has built a state-run business empire so vast that it includes a factory producing contraceptive pills – despite his urging fellow countrymen to forsake birth control and produce a baby boom.
His growing dominance over the national economy is laid bare in a report that reveals Iran’s top cleric and most powerful political figure to be in command of enterprises worth an estimated $95billion (£60billion).
The figure was uncovered in a six-month investigation by Reuters news agency, which reported that a sprawling network of companies and properties was at his disposal thanks to his control of a state organisation, known as Setad, or the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam.
The organisation was originally established for charitable purposes, to provide revenues to assist the poor, but has been steadily built up over the years – boosted by a flurry of acquisitions which have included property confiscated from religious minorities, business people and Iranian expatriates.
Now Ayatollah Khamenei has expanded Setad into a “financial juggernaut” that he has used to cement his 24-year grip on power, according to Reuters. Under its orbit are 37 companies reaching into every corner of the Iranian economy – including finance, oil, telecommunications and even ostrich farming.