The naming of Tory donor and business tycoon Javad Marandi in a major money laundering case brought by the National Crime Agency is a vital victory for open justice in the public interest, campaigners and lawyers have said after judges criticised the businessman’s failure to provide evidence to support his case for anonymity.
Anti-corruption organisations said the disclosure that Mr Marandi, a multi-millionaire OBE who owns the Conran Shop and other businesses here and abroad, was a “person of importance” in a case brought by law enforcers against three members of an Azeri oligarch’s family raised “serious questions about the relationship between money and power” in Britain.
