In an interview with an Iranian newspaper, Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammad talked about corruption cases when he served as the head of the General Inspection Office, an oversight body that operates under the judiciary.

Pourmohammad, who served as interior minister from 2005-2008 during former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first term, talked about the problems with his former boss and accusations of bias. Pourmohamad said, “After my first year in the Cabinet, I was confronted with the administration’s lack of discipline, irregularities and incorrect statistics. … Wrong, propagandistic and enlarged statistics were realities that existed and inside that administration I was entangled with them.”

Pourmohammad said that after he was “removed” from the Cabinet and was appointed by the judiciary to head the General Inspection Office, “nongovernmental officials and media would come to me and ask if the [administration’s] statistics were correct. And I would respond that the General Inspection Office would not confirm these statistics or that these statistics were not correct.” He continued that his job demanded that he supervise the different governmental agencies and could not longer say, “I am part of this administration and these statistics have nothing to do with me or as a former member of the administration choose expediency [and be silent]."

He emphasized, “The personal differences between Ahmadinejad and me had no influence in producing my reports.”