Mehdi Karroubi (, born 26 September 1937) is an Iranian Shia cleric and reformist politician leading the National Trust Party. Following 2009–2010 Iranian election protests, Karroubi was put under house arrest in February 2011 – reportedly ordered by the Supreme Leader of Iran – without officially being charged, although he is accused of being a "seditionist" and "traitor". As of 2021, he is still confined to his house. He was the speaker of the parliament from 1989 to 1992 and 2000 to 2004, and a presidential candidate in the 2005 and 2009 presidential elections. He has been described as a "moderate" with a "mostly rural" base of support. Karroubi considers himself a pragmatic reformist and now is one of the leaders of the Iranian Green Movement. He is a founding member and former secretary-general of the Association of Combatant Clerics party. Karroubi is a critic of the Guardian Council and Iran's Judicial System. By appointment of the Supreme Leader, he was a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and an adviser, posts he held until resigning from all his posts on 15 June 2005 after the first round of the 2005 presidential election. Early life, education, and career Mehdi Karroubi is born on 26 September 1937 into a Shia clerical family in Aligudarz, a city in the western part of Lorestan province. He has a brother, Hassan. Karroubi studied theology and Islamic studies at seminaries in Qom and Tehran. He studied under notable figures such as Hossein-Ali Montazeri and Ruhollah Khomeini. Karroubi was promoted to Mujtahid on the recommendation of the Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei and others. He also studied theology and law at Tehran University. In 1962, he became a lawyer in economy, dealing with the investments of prominent businessmen in Iran. Karroubi was imprisoned several times by the government of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, during the 1970s, including a stint at the Qasr Prison in Tehran. His wife, Fatemeh, later recalled that she took their second son, Taghi, to meet his father at Qasr Prison for the first time when he was six months old. In 1978, Karroubi retired from law in order to commit to politics. In 1979, he joined the Iranian Revolution. Karroubi was the head of the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and the Martyr's Foundation shortly after Iranian revolution. In 1988, Karroubi re-entered business after 10 years of emphasis on politics. With