Seyed Abood Sari has been battling extradition to U.S., which has a warrant for his arrest for alleged fraud charges, according to a B.C. Supreme Court ruling
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered an executive of an Iranian airline that was previously designated a terrorist entity to be extradited to the U.S. for alleged fraud against American banks.
Seyed Abood Sari is “committed to custody to await surrender” to the U.S., according to a judgment released on Tuesday by Justice Michael Tammen.
The U.S. requested Sari’s extradition from Canada when he landed in B.C. in 2019 to celebrate his birthday with a ski trip to Whistler with his two sons who were then attending UBC, according to the judgment.
The U.S. alleges Sari was the general manager of a Dubai-based company that was a subsidiary of Mahan Air of Iran, he wrote.
Mahan Air, in October 2011, was linked to terrorism by the U.S. government for providing “financial, material and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force” and subject to sanctions.
As a result of those sanctions, many American financial institutions were unwilling to do business with Mahan Air as they would be subject to penalties, Tammen wrote.
The U.S. alleges that Sari and others conducted international financial transactions on behalf of Mahan Air by using “front” companies and payment intermediaries to hide Mahan Air’s identity from the banks, he said.
Three elements are required before a Canadian judge can order someone’s extradition: the alleged conduct has to be illegal in Canada, there must be sufficient evidence of the alleged crime and there has to be certainty that the person in question is the person being sought.
Tammen found those elements had been met.
Tammen said the “entire body of evidence” the U.S. relies on is circumstantial and based on “potentially incriminating inferences” found in various email accounts, including that of Sari’s.
The theory is the emails reveal a conspiracy among multiple Mahan Air employees to cause U.S. banks to do business with front companies to benefit Mahan Air, he said.
Sari argued that the evidence failed to show where he had been the “directing mind” for the transactions, nor did it prove he was in a position of financial authority for any of the companies listed, the judgment said.
Sari also said “impermissible speculation and guessing will be required” to show he had been involved in a dishonest transaction or that he knew about them or intended to participate in them, Tammen wrote.
The judge said the evidence may later show that these were not “front” companies and that “may prove fatal to the case at trial, or it may not.” But he said it wasn’t the purpose of the extradition hearing to decide whether the evidence would convict.
“The sufficiency of the evidence is a concern of the extradition judge,” he wrote. “Reliability is not.”
“At this juncture, it is sufficient if the evidence shows a connection between Mahan Air and the alleged front companies which is capable of supporting an inference that certain financial transactions were done for the benefit of Mahan Air using the other company,” he wrote.
Mahan Air is also sanctioned under Canada’s anti-terrorism regulations, which led to the Canada Border Services Agency detaining Sari when he arrived in Canada in 2019 because it had learned he was a principal employee of the airline, according to earlier court documents.
The agency said it learned hours later there was a U.S. warrant for charges of fraud and money laundering against Sari.
A judge last year denied Sari’s attempt to stop his extradition. He tried to argue his consular rights had been infringed upon following his arrest.
Justice Janet Winteringham agreed his rights were infringed upon and that violations in his detention hearings led to him spending six months in pretrial custody before being let out on bail with strict conditions, including electronic monitoring. But she said the violations in both instances weren’t serious enough to warrant a stay of extradition proceedings.
