Police sent papers to prosecutors accusing a former Iranian ambassador to Japan and a former embassy staff member of being directly involved in illegal weapons exports to Iran, Metropolitan Police Department officials said.
But because of the ambassador's diplomatic immunity against arrest or indictment, prosecutors are not expected to file any charges against the former envoy. It is extremely rare for Japanese police to take criminal action against a diplomat who has served as an ambassador to Japan.
The police officials said Friday that the former envoy, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, and an unidentified embassy worker who once belonged to the embassy's accounting section are suspected of transferring 6.1 million yen in March 1994 into the bank account of Sun Beam K.K., a small trading company in Tokyo that allegedly shipped the parts.