Ali-Hosseini tested positive for steroids on Oct. 24, 2009. He also failed a test - resulting in a two-year ban - in September 2006, IWF legal counsel Monika Ungar said. The penalty for a second doping offense is a life ban.

Ungar said the ban was announced only now because it took this long for the IWF process to be completed.

Iranian media reported that the 22-year-old Ali-Hosseini accused his country's weightlifting federation of fabricating the case against him.

“I have not carried doping. This was a plot and I wish the traitors pay for it,” Ali-Hosseini told the Shargh newspaper.

Ali-Hosseini still holds three junior men's world records in the over-105 kilogram category set in the Asian Weightlifting Championship in South Korea in 2008, when he lifted 206 kilograms in the snatch and 245 kilograms in the clean and jerk, totaling 451 kilograms.

Ungar said that the IWF raised its ban for a first positive doping test to four years from two years in March 2008, but cases have continued to pile up.

“Unfortunately, the tendency is not decreasing,” Ungar said.

The IWF lists 24 athletes who have been banned so far in 2010, including one lifetime ban. Ali-Hosseini's ban is listed under 2009 cases, along with 43 others.