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One of Iran’s most powerful men – who led Tehran’s failed peace negotiations with the US – has for more than a decade built extensive ties to Australia, including through rental income from at least one investment property that was collected by his son.

As Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf plays a central role in the Middle East conflict and the peace negotiations, Guardian Australia can reveal Iran’s parliamentary speaker and his son have links to a research centre at the University of Melbourne. His 38-year-old son, Eshagh Ghalibaf, also secured long-term Australian residency despite Canada twice rejecting his visa applications.

The links raise questions about how his son – who was later denied a Canadian visa due to concerns about the regime’s actions – was able to receive income from Australian property and secure temporary residency. This is despite Ghalibaf being the former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ air force and police chief who has boasted about his role in beating student protesters.

It also raises questions about Australia’s handling of sanctions against current and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps figures and their families. The IRGC was only officially designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the federal government in November. In terms of Ghalibaf, no sanction has ever been imposed by the Australian government, unlike in Canada.

British-Australian academic Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was detained in Iran for more than 800 days on espionage charges, said Eshagh’s presence in Australia was another example of the federal government “dropping the ball on vetting and excluding” high-level Iranian officials and their close relatives from entering the country.

“It’s known that such people pose a security threat, especially to the Iranian-Australia community which is overwhelmingly anti-regime, but also to the Jewish community,” she said.

Moore-Gilbert said the Iranian regime had extended its influence to a number of western countries including Australia.

“We have been very slow to wake up to the national security threats inherent in allowing senior Islamic Republic officials and their proxies, including children and family members, to migrate to or base themselves out of our country,” she said.

‘Rent collected from tenants’

It’s not clear when exactly the Ghalibafs first developed their ties to Australia and what authorities knew about their activities.

Much of what is known is contained in documents filed in the federal court in Canada by Eshagh as part of an unsuccessful five-year battle to obtain permanent residency in that country.

Eshagh provided a detailed history of his own movements, work and study history, and finances – stating that he first arrived in Melbourne in early 2014 and initially studied English and a bridging course.

According to the documents he filed in the court in Ontario, Eshagh continued living in the inner-city suburb of South Yarra while studying a masters of engineering at the University of Melbourne between 2015 and 2018, listing two rental properties as his addresses during that time.

As part of his court filings, he also included bank statements from his ANZ and NAB accounts, showing he had been receiving two separate monthly payments of $1,353.63 from a Melbourne-based real estate agency in late 2018. He described the payments as being “rent collected from tenants”, in notes provided to Canadian immigration authorities contained in the court file.

There is no disclosure of what property is owned, when it was bought and how it was acquired.

A source at the agency said records from that time had been removed in accordance with Victorian legislation. The only other clue is a reference to “Afzali” in the transaction description on the bank statements, but the Guardian has not been able to identify anyone of that name that rented from the agency.

The most recent of the Australian banking documents provided to the court were from early 2019. However, Eshagh told the court that he maintained an Australian visa for more than four years after completing his masters degree.

“I have been granted a Temporary Residency in Australia until the end of September 2022, which l have not pursued to change to Permanent Residency (PR) since I have been waiting for my Canadian PR every single week for the last three years,” Eshagh said in a September 2022 affidavit tendered to Canada’s federal court and viewed by Guardian Australia.

In the same affidavit, he revealed he also owned land in Tehran that he had “lost the opportunity of developing in the last three years” and was “missing the time to sell it” because he was uncertain when he would receive permanent residency in Canada.

In February 2024 – just months after the federal court in Ontario ordered that a decision on his visa be expedited – Canada’s then immigration minister Marc Miller made an announcement on X.

“On Feb. 6th, the permanent residency application of Eshagh Ghalibaf, the son of Iran’s Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was refused,” Miller said in his post. “The Iranian regime has engaged in acts of terrorism and systemic human rights violations. We stand with the people of Iran.”

It was the second time he had failed to secure a Canadian visa. Eshagh told the court he was unsuccessful in securing one to study in Ottawa in 2013, blaming a lack of documentation. Instead, it appears, he turned his sights on Australia not long after.

While studying in Australia, Eshagh got a job.

He accepted a role as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration (CSDILA), working there between July 2016 and June 2018, according to a letter from a department administrator tendered in his Canadian permanent residency application. According to the documents, it amounted to about seven hours of work a week during term times.

Powerful friends and money at hand

When Eshagh first applied for Canadian permanent residency, he outlined the funds he had available to set up his life there. As of January 2019, he could access more than US$148,000 from two Iranian bank accounts, along with more than AU$15,000 held in Australian bank accounts, according to documents filed in the Canadian court .

In Iran, he had worked for a civil engineering firm, including during Australian university holidays and after graduating with his masters.

His employer, according to a work reference filed in court, was Seyyed Abouzar Khazraei Afzali.

It is not known whether the man has any relation to the Afzali mentioned in the rent payment transactions seen in Eshagh’s bank statements. However, Khazraei Afzali is the son-in-law of Qassem Suleimani – who, as head of Iran’s Quds Force, was one of the most powerful people in the Middle East until he was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.

Suleimani was also seen as a close ally of Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf. After Suleimani’s death, Tehran-based media outlets reported that Ghalibaf had even asked Narjes Suleimani – the general’s daughter and wife of Khazraei Afzali – not to go against her late father’s wishes and seek political office.

Like Suleimani, Ghalibaf served in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and remained involved in the IRGC. He was named commander of the IRGC’s air force from 1997, before leading the police force from 2000. After his first unsuccessful run for president in 2005, he served as the mayor of Tehran from 2005 to 2017 before becoming the speaker of Iran’s parliament in 2020.

He has now emerged as a leader of the country’s war efforts and its key negotiations with the US, leading the team that met with the US vice-president JD Vance during failed peace talks in Pakistan in April.

However, amid speculation that White House staff consider him to be a future leader of Iran, Ghalibaf has hardened his rhetoric against the US, frequently taunting Trump and other administration officials on X where he has mocked them about the war’s impact on petrol prices.

Australia’s Iranian community have campaigned for years about the relatives of Iran’s officials residing in the country, arguing they could pose a safety threat to the diaspora, with members reporting harassment and surveillance extending beyond the country’s borders. Submissions to a 2022 federal parliament inquiry probing the human rights implication of the Iranian regime crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom protesters, raised concerns about relatives of officials that have overseen the violent repression of protesters seeking sanctuary in Australia.

NSW Liberal senator Dave Sharma, who has previously raised Ghalibaf’s ties to Australia in federal parliament, said the revelations showed Australia’s sanctions framework was “full of holes”.

“Actors with close ties to the Iranian regime, such as the son of Mohammad Ghalibaf, should not be able to operate with liberty in Australia. The fact that they are able to do so is a serious security failing,” he said.

Last August, the Albanese government expelled Tehran’s ambassador to Canberra after the nation’s domestic spy agency concluded it had “credible information” that Iran directed at least two attacks against Australia’s Jewish community. Australia’s embassy in Iran also suspended operations.

Months later, the federal government listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a state sponsor of terrorism in November.

Dr Rodger Shanahan, a former fellow at the Lowy Institute who specialises in the Middle East, said Australia had continued diplomatic relations with Iran beyond 2012 when Canada ceased to have a diplomatic presence in the country and expelled Tehran’s diplomats.

“You would imagine that they would view visa applications differently to each other as a result,” he said.

“Every case is and should be managed individually. So I imagine that’s what they’ve done in this circumstance.”

Shanahan said the breakdown in Australia’s diplomatic relations with Iran and the listing of the IRGC as a state sponsor of terrorism meant visa applications by children of Iranian regime officials would now be viewed in a “completely different light.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it could not comment publicly on sanctions compliance or speculate on potential future sanctions measures.

Ghalibaf and Eshagh were approached for comment.