The tensions and clashes between conservative judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani and moderate President Hassan Rouhani have entered a new phase, with Larijani saying Rouhani has been accused of taking money from jailed tycoon Babak Zanjani.

On Dec. 2, at the specialized meeting of the community of supervision and inspection of the government, ministries, organizations and local governments, Rouhani brought up the issue of Zanjani, who has been sentenced to death for corruption. “Is it possible for a person to steal $3 billion alone? Whom was he connected to? Who helped him? Whom were his partners? What position do they have? How was the oil given to this person? How was the money handed to this person? … The judiciary has pursued this [matter], and has issued a verdict. … But people’s questions remain. Now they want to execute him [Zanjani]. [Suppose that] he is executed, [but] what happened to the [missing] money? What happened to the money that was in the hands of this man, and where did it go?” the president said.

Zanjani, one of Iran’s richest men, was arrested in December 2013 after accusations that he withheld billions in oil revenue belonging to the Oil Ministry. During the years Iran was under tough US-led sanctions over its nuclear program, he arranged oil deals worth billions of dollars through a network of companies stretching from Turkey to Malaysia to the United Arab Emirates. He amassed a fortune of $10 billion along with debts of a similar scale, the tycoon once told Aseman magazine.

Rouhani continued at the meeting, “As the representative of the Iranian nation and the person in charge of enforcing the constitution, I state here that in important cases in which billions of [dollars worth of] public assets have been embezzled, people’s questions should be answered, because if they are not answered, we lose a more important thing than $3 billion … and that is the public’s trust and social capital.”