The corruption conviction of Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, son of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been upheld by an appellate court in Iran, according to judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei. The decision by the court was welcomed by conservative media, which have increasingly been at odds with Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Rafsanjani, a former president who is the head of the Expediency Council and one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to Mohseni-Ejei, the court upheld all three of Mehdi Hashemi's convictions, which were “embezzlement, bribery and security issues,” but added that Mehdi originally had a total of 12 charges, though some of them were for the same charge and therefore were combined.

Mohseni-Ejei said Mehdi was sentenced to a total of 25 years for the convictions but only 10 years will be carried out. Mehdi was initially convicted in March. At the time it was reported that he was sentenced to 15 years in prison; however, that was later denied by Mohseni-Ejei.

Before Mohseni-Ejei confirmed the news June 11, Fars News, using an anonymous source, broke the story a day earlier. On June 11, the top stories of Fars News Agency and Tasnim News Agency, two of the most conservative news agencies in Iran, were about the Mehdi Hashemi case.