Rafsanjani’s Son Fled, Paper Reports

LONDON —  A weekly newspaper said Sunday that the eldest son of the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament is believed to have fled to Canada with at least $6 million in commissions from the secret U.S.-Iran arms deals.

The Observer, quoting what it said were unidentified Iranian sources in London, said Mehdi Bahremani left his home in Brussels on Nov. 15. It said he had been tipped off that an Iranian investigator was planning to question him about his alleged involvement in buying American arms for Iran.

The newspaper said Bahremani, 25, the son of Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani, fled to Toronto.

It said Bahremani is a close associate of Manucher Ghorbanifar, identified as the head of Iran’s intelligence network in Europe. Ghorbanifar allegedly played a key role in buying hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. arms, the paper said.

The Observer said Bahremani collected more than $6 million in commissions on arms sales between July, 1985, and this September, and was worried that these dealings would embarrass his father, who is close to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.