Babak Zanjani, the businessman who became a household name for his extravagant lifestyle at a time when many Iranians were reeling from the impact of sanctions, wrote a letter to President Hassan Rouhani from prison, it has been confirmed.

Zanjani’s case captured the attention of the Iranian public for its unusual nature. The man who once claimed to be worth $14 billion and gave himself the moniker “the economic basij” was arrested in December 2013 for an unpaid debt of $2 billion to the Oil Ministry. Two years later, he maintains his innocence, and officials from the Rouhani administration and the judiciary are still unable to formally charge him, recoup the money owed or convince him to give up the names of others who worked with him in evading oil sanctions under the administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The news website Dana first published a copy of the letter Sept. 29, though it was reportedly written in July.

In the letter, Zanjani complained that Vice President Eshag Jahangiri has shown him “disrespect in public forms,” and that it is not appropriate for a high-ranking official to attack a “normal person” such as himself. Zanjani wrote that Jahangiri has wrongly accused him “of corruption and relationships with people behind the scenes in the previous administration.”