
MADRID, 6 Aug. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Iraqi Integrity Fee has introduced this Sunday the opening of a world arrest warrant in opposition to former Finance Minister Ali Alaui and different former senior officers for his or her involvement within the so-called “theft of the century”, the theft of two,500 million euros in fiscal funds from an Iraqi financial institution.
The president of the Fee, Choose Haider Hanun, has lastly confirmed at a press convention the issuance of this order in opposition to the previous Minister of Finance through the tenure of then Prime Minister Mostafa al Kazemi.
The Justice of the Peace has additionally confirmed that he has issued further orders in opposition to Al Kazemi’s chief of employees, Raed Jouhi and the non-public secretary of the then president, Ahmed Nayati. The fourth former official persecuted is the previous press officer of Al Kazemi, Mushrik Abbas.
Jouhi and Nayati have US nationality whereas Allawi is British-Iraqi. In the event that they have been within the US or the UK, this might imply they could possibly be extradited. “I hope that Washington and London collaborate,” defined the Justice of the Peace, who didn’t specify whether or not Abbas has one other nationality, at a press convention reported by the official Iraqi information company INA.
Rampant corruption plagues all ranges of the Iraqi state, which ranks 157 out of 180 nations in Transparency Worldwide’s corruption notion index, and official figures launched final 12 months estimate that greater than 400 billion euros have disappeared from state coffers for the reason that regime of dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003.
The cash in query was stolen from a fund of the nationwide tax authority within the Rafidain financial institution, between September 2021 and August 2022 by means of 247 checks that have been cashed by 5 firms.
The cash was then withdrawn in money from the accounts of those firms, most of whose house owners are additionally on the run. The 4 are accused, in accordance with the assertion, of “facilitating the embezzlement of sums belonging to the tax authorities” and for the second their belongings have been frozen. Half 100 persons are being investigated in these procedures.