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Jafarpour takes stand at SISO fraud trial

Morteza Jafarpour, the former head of SISO, took the stand in his defence Tuesday. The Settlement and Integration Services Organization was once the largest organization in Hamilton to help immigrants and refugees adapt. Jafarpour and Robert Salama, SISO’s former Finance Director, are on trial for fraud, forgery and conspiracy. SISO went bankrupt in 2011 after it’s major source of funding, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, stopped all contracts because of concerns over SISO’s financial practices.
Lisa Hepfner has been following this trial and she joins us live with more.
The lawyer for the crown, James Vincelli, wrapped up his case Tuesday morning. His witnesses included SISO’s two computer techs. They say Jafarpour and Salama told them to make fake copies of bank records, payroll and some cheques with altered information. Even though they knew their actions were wrong. They say they were told the 140 full time jobs at SISO were at stake, along with the organization itself, and that they were under severe emotional blackmail at the time. But Tuesday, jurists heard Morteza Jafarpour’s perspective. He says he didn’t know anything nefarious was going on at SISO until it was too late.
Morteza Jafarpour told the jury about immigrating to Hamilton in 1989, after serving three years as a political prisoner in his native Iran.
For four years he delivered pizza. Then in the early 90’s, he helped form the organization that came to be known as SISO. He volunteered there, was eventually hired and in 1998 became Executive Director. Where he stayed until his resignation at the end of 2010.
He says SISO had an excellent relationship with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, or CIC, for 16 years; SISO was the place CIC would send other immigrant organizations for training. By 2010, SISO’s budget was more than $13 million. Jafarpour says he didn’t understand when CIC first withheld program funding, and started asking for documents they had never requested before. He thought they were being difficult.
He says he trusted his managers to do their jobs; like Robert Salama. Salama and another manager Nese Burgaz, were the ones with access to SISO’s banking system and debit cards. They were the ones who, an auditor found, had been depositing an extra $2,000 to $2,500 in their accounts every two weeks. But there are also questionable RSP payments to others in SISO, including one for $46,000 paid to Jafarpour.
Jafarpour says he never asked anyone to misrepresent any document; and had no idea SISO had a virtual server that contained a second version of payroll records.
So Jafarpour and his lawyer are pinning the blame on Robert Salama. Salama is representing himself. He’s already told the jury he didn’t get bail, has been in jail for a year, and he is having trouble managing evidence in his defence. Jafarpour is still giving his statement through his lawyer, but it will be interesting to see what happens when he is cross examined by the crown lawyer and by Robert Salama.