Corruption settlements may return $7.6B to Iraq

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Preliminary settlements with people convicted of corruption could recover about 10 trillion dinars ($7.6 billion) through the return of stolen funds and confiscation of assets acquired with public money, an Iraqi government source told Shafaq News on Saturday.

The settlements would neither overturn convictions nor waive the state’s right to prosecute, but would “establish guilt while recovering public funds.”

Authorities have also completed a list of 40 corruption suspects, including four lawmakers, current and former deputy ministers, directors-general, intermediaries, and owners of prominent companies from across Iraq’s communities. The list, whose existence a source disclosed to Shafaq News on Wednesday, will be presented to the ruling bloc in parliament –the Shiite Coordination Framework (CF)– and other political forces to lift parliamentary immunity before arrest warrants are sough.

Investigators plan to record the suspects’ confessions and release them alongside their trials to guard against fabricated statements or unsupported accusations, the source clarified. The measure was proposed by an “influential political leader” and received unanimous backing within the CF.

The “Dawn Crackdown” (Sawlat Al-Fajr) anti-corruption campaign began on June 28 under Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi, with government figures recording at least 47 detentions in its first 24 hours alone, while Federal Commission of Integrity sources put the total at 67 and expected the campaign to pursue more than 200 suspects.

Read more: Iraq's Dawn Crackdown by numbers: 67 arrests explained ...