TEHRAN - Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh, the secretary general of the High Council of Iranian Affairs Abroad, has been arrested on financial charges, MP Esmaeil Kosari announced on Thursday.

On June 18, Malekzadeh was appointed as deputy foreign minister for administrative and financial affairs, a move which provoked a storm of criticism from a number of lawmakers.
33 MPs even signed a motion to impeach Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi for the appointment.
Part of the impeachment proposal read, “Although the minister has the authority to appoint his deputy, he does not have the right to appoint a deputy, most of whose former colleagues have been arrested, and himself is on the verge of being arrested on a number of financial charges and some other charges.”
However, the MPs decided to drop the motion to impeach Salehi after Malekzadeh resigned from the post on June 21, and Salehi accepted his resignation.
In his resignation letter, Malekzadeh wrote, “I clearly dismiss all the allegations that have been made against me.”
Speaking to reporter, Kosari, the deputy chairman of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Malekzadeh has been held in detention on financial charges since Thursday morning.
He also stated that the committee had warned the foreign minister as well as state-run institutions about the charges against Malekzadeh