BAGHDAD: Iraq’s judiciary issued arrest warrants on Saturday for four former officials who are accused of facilitating the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds in one of the country’s biggest-ever corruption scandals.
An investigating judge in Baghdad has “issued arrest warrants for four senior officials of the former government,” the government’s anti-corruption agency said in a statement.
The four men, who include a former finance minister and relatives of former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, are all living outside the country, according to an official at the agency who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The warrants do not name any of the officials, but according to the official, they are former finance minister Ali Allawi, the director of cabinet Raed Jouhi, personal secretary Ahmed Najati, and adviser Mushrik Abbas.
Allawi, a respected politician and academic, resigned in August last year when the scandal broke.
The case, which has been dubbed “the heist of the century,” sparked outrage in oil-rich Iraq, which critics say is plagued with corruption.
At least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies. The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of these companies, most of whose owners are on the run.
The four men are accused of “facilitating the embezzlement of sums belonging to the tax authorities,” the statement said, adding that they would also be subject to an asset freeze.
The country’s current Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani has vowed to crack down on corruption since his appointment in late October.
Iraq issues arrest warrants in ‘heist of the century’
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Iraq issues arrest warrants in ‘heist of the century’
- At least $2.5 billion in tax money was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022
- 4 top officials under former PM Mustafa Al-Kadhimi are accused of “facilitating the embezzlement"
Western Libya forces kill notorious migrant smuggler, security agency says
- The Security Threats Combating Agency raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi
- Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018
BENGHAZI: Western Libyan security forces said on Friday they had killed a notorious migrant smuggler in the coastal city of Sabratha after “criminal gangs” affiliated with him attacked one of their checkpoints overnight.
The Security Threats Combating Agency, a security agency under western Libya’s Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah, said they raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi, also known as “Al-Amu.”
Dabbashi’s brother was arrested and six members of the force were wounded in the fighting, the agency said in the statement on its Facebook page.
Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018. Washington described him as the “leader of one of two powerful migrant smuggling organizations” based in Sabratha and said he had “used his organization to rob and enslave migrants before allowing them to leave for Italy.”
Human trafficking is rife in Libya, which has been divided between rival armed factions since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The proliferation of smuggling gangs and the absence of a strong central authority have made the country one of the main staging points for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
Dbeibah was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021, but significant parts of western Libya remain outside his control. Dbeibah’s Government of National Unity, or GNU, is not recognized by rival authorities in the east.
An armed alliance affiliated with an earlier UN-backed government in Tripoli – the Government of National Accord – had taken on Dabbashi’s forces in a three-week battle in 2017 that killed and wounded dozens and damaged residential areas and Sabratha’s Roman ruins.
