Iraq's judicial and oversight authorities have launched a comprehensive strategy to encircle financial and administrative corruption networks and recover looted funds, with the Federal Integrity Commission moving internationally by drafting new memoranda of understanding to break through the wall of silence maintained by uncooperative countries.
The Federal Integrity Commission announced yesterday that it had prepared draft international memoranda of understanding aimed at accelerating the recovery of smuggled funds and fugitive suspects, while acknowledging the existence of legal and political obstacles erected by certain capitals.
According to the Iraqi News Agency, Abbas Mutaab, director-general of the Recovery Department at the Federal Integrity Commission and deputy chairman of the board of the Iraq Funds Recovery Fund, said: "There are some countries that are uncooperative on the file of recovering the funds of corrupt individuals, for reasons of their own, and there are countries that are cooperative in this regard."
He explained that "the department has prepared a draft for signing memoranda of understanding with those countries to recover funds and suspects, and we are following up with countries and developments, but some countries' domestic laws do not permit the taking of a specific measure requested by Iraq."
He added that "Iraq resorts to the path of negotiations, and there are alternative mechanisms with countries for the purpose of cooperation," noting that "many countries are uncooperative for various reasons, some economic and others related to humanitarian considerations, and sometimes the corrupt individual is a refugee in those countries, which makes extradition difficult."
This decision comes after the Supreme Judicial Council announced internal understandings providing for the granting of facilitations and a reduction of legal procedures against suspects who are willing to voluntarily return the funds.
The Iraqi government, led by Ali Faleh Al Zaidi, had previously taken several measures to pursue those wanted in corruption cases and to activate judicial procedures for the recovery of stolen funds both inside and outside Iraq.
The Federal Integrity Commission had earlier signed a cooperation agreement with the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Baghdad for direct access to the Interpol information system, and to encourage national central bureaus to expand direct access to the Interpol system and view information on wanted individuals, extending this to bodies responsible for conducting forensic investigations in cooperation with the international police in various countries.
These developments come just a few months after the aftershock caused by the arrest of former Deputy Minister of Oil Adnan Al Jumaili in May; his in-depth confessions led the judiciary to uncover a wide-ranging corruption network in the oil refinery sector.
The security raids that followed Al Jumaili's confessions resulted in the arrest of approximately 67 people, the vast majority of them members of the current parliamentary term, prominent executive officials, and businessmen, while the judiciary revealed an inventory and accounting of the vast sums seized in connection with this case.