Lawyers entered Oxford University Wednesday in an attempt to serve legal papers on the son of a former ruler of Iran, demanding he pay millions in compensation for his "torture" of a business rival.
Mehdi Rafsanjani Hashemi, undertaking a doctorate on Iran's constitution, was found liable in absentia by a Canadian court for imprisoning and torturing a rival in the 1990s. Ontario's superior court of justice ordered Hashemi, fourth son of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's president from 1989 to 1997, to pay total damages of £3.7m to Houshang Bouzari and his family.
Bouzari told the Oxford Student newspaper that it was "beyond redemption" that Oxford was "ignorant" of Hashemi's role as a "torturer's accomplice".
In August the court ordered Hashemi to pay £2.1m to Bouzari, a Canadian citizen jailed for seven months in Iran in 1993 after he refused to pay $50m to Hashemi, then a director of the Iran's national oil company. The court also ordered him to pay millions to compensate Bouzari's family.
Bouzari said: "I had a $1.8bn contract, 28 people on my staff, big oil companies behind me. All of a sudden I have nothing. Their first goal was to remove me from the contract so Mehdi could move in and have it," he told the Walrus magazine in 2004.
On Wednesday representatives of the Ontario court attempted to serve papers; Hashemi travels frequently to Dubai, and they could not find him, but papers were put in his pigeonhole and a copy handed to a representative of Oxford's vice-chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton.
In a statement to the Guardian via email , Hashemi said: "I learned about a judgment in absentia, in a proceeding that I did not get the chance to defend myself, through [a] Sunday Times article. I wonder why I was not served or contacted prior to the judgment in August at my current address. I categorically deny all baseless allegations, including but not limited to torture allegations, brought forward by someone motivated by greed. Claims of 'conspiracy' are ridiculous, and I'd not even entertain them."
Oxford said it was only made aware of the judgment very recently. "It's unclear what status a default judgment in a civil Canadian court has in the English legal system, or in the university's regulations," said a spokeswoman.
The university has faced claims Hashemi made a fraudulent application and that his English was not good enough to understand his tutors. Reza Sheikholeslami, emeritus fellow at Wadham College, said in April his admission was seriously flawed. "I knew Hashemi did not have the minimum English mandated at Oxford," he said, adding that he got a "special waiver by the admitting tutor". Sheikholeslami also claims he told Oxford that Hashemi "hired" a student to help write his thesis application.
Hashemi stated: "I do understand, speak and write English, however I was asked by Oxford to improve my English, not unprecedented at this university. As for qualifications, I urge you to refer to Oxford's enquiry by [former vice-chancellor] Sir Peter North."
The university said: "Allegations that a student was paid to help him are utterly untrue. The North investigation also found no evidence of impropriety on the part of the admitting tutor."
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