A recent development that has exacerbated people’s concern over the high level of corruption in Iraq is an arrest warrant for a businessman and a former government official issued by an Iraqi criminal court on charges of embezzlement of $2. 5 billion, of which the government has promised to spend public funds.
The scandal, referred to as the “heist of the century,” has caused outrage in a country struggling with corruption, a high unemployment rate, and deteriorating infrastructure after years of war.
The state news agency INA reported that the court had issued warrants for the arrest of businessman Nour Zuhair and former adviser to then-prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi Haitham al-Juburi.
The two are among many other suspects whose trials commenced in mid-August; however, they have not been able to present themselves in court since they are at large.
From the details availed by the tax authorities, the defendants are accused of embezzling $2. Five companies cashed 247 checks of five billion US dollars between September 2021 and August 2022. It was then withdrawn in cash from the firms’ accounts and called the money.
Many of them are on the run, like the owners of those accounts, who have also been issued arrest warrants. According to the national anti-fraud agency, about 30 suspects are to be trailed, out of which six are already in jail or held awaiting remand on indictment in Iraq.
As a turn in the story, the chair was arrested at Baghdad International Airport in October this year while attempting to flee Iraq. However, he was later released on bail after paying more than $125 million and promising to pay the rest in installments.
Juburi also returned $2. 6 million of the allegedly embezzled funds before disappearing, according to a judicial source who spoke to AFP. It is also unknown where both of them are at the moment.
The “Nour Zuhair affair,” as it has been named, has been called a scandal that “regardless of its details, affects the Iraqi political system as a whole” by the Iraqi journalist and commentator Hamed al-Sayyed. He accused the authorities of granting bail to Zuhair, which made the man escape.
Corrupt practices are rife in most of the Iraqi state apparatus, with the elites in power barely being held to account, thus deepening the public’s disillusionment with the political institutions.
