Golriz Ghahraman, a member of parliament in New Zealand, has been forced to resign after videos of her shoplifting from some upmarket boutiques surfaced.
Allegations of three separate thefts from boutiques in Auckland, a city in New Zealand, and Wellington, the capital, were aired last week by local media outlets.
The items, reportedly worth thousands of dollars, included a designer handbag.
In a statement released on Tuesday by the Green Party which Ghahraman belongs to, the MP said “stresses relating to my work” led her to act “in ways completely out of character”.
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“People should, rightly, expect the highest standards of behaviour from their elected representatives. I fell short. I’m sorry,” she said.
“The best thing for my mental health is to resign as a member of parliament and to focus on my recovery and to find other ways to work for positive change in the world.”
Any MP who is found guilty of a crime which could draw an imprisonment term of at least two years is disqualified from parliament under New Zealand electoral law
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If the value of the property stolen exceeds $1,000, the maximum penalty is imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years.
The Oxford-educated human rights lawyer was born in Iran and became the country’s first refugee MP when elected in 2017.
In recent months, she rose to become one of the country’s leading voices for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
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