Judge Al-Saadi as vice-president of the 4th session of States Parties Conf.

INA - BAGHDAD 

Federal Integrity Commission announced the selection of its Chairman, Judge Alaa Jawad Al-Saadi, as Vice-President of the 4th session of the States Parties Conference to the Arab Convention against Corruption, whose current session is chaired by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

”The Conference of the States Parties, which will be held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, 22-23 March 2022, aims to strengthen international cooperation in the fight against corruption," said the Commission in a statement received by the Iraqi News Agency - INA.

The Commission noted that "the delegation of Iraq was headed by the Chairman of the Integrity Federal Commission Judge Alaa Jawad Al-Saadi,”

”The conference will be attended by a number of ministers concerned with combating corruption in member states of the League of Arab States from 14 Arab countries, in the presence of a number of international and regional organizations,” according to the statement. 

In his speech during the conference, Al-Saadi called "the states parties in the agreement to take decisions aimed at combating corruption and reducing its pathways," stressing "the need to assist Iraq in recovering its looted money,”

He expressed his hope that "the brotherly Arab countries will respond to this call, especially since Iraq has suffered a lot because of wars, dictatorial regimes and terrorism as it needs these funds to rebuild its infrastructure to move towards development and prosperity,”

Al-Saadi suggested "adopting the recommendations of Baghdad Conference to recover the looted funds", asserting his call "to form an international pressure group to work with the countries that hold the looted funds and assets, and whose refusal to cooperate is confirmed in order to push them to cooperate to return the money and the convicted persons,”

He called for "the formation of international courts specialized in the issue of recovery, urging that the decisions of the session support the GLOBE initiative, which aims to develop a rapid and effective mean to combat cross-border corruption crimes, enhance cooperation between law enforcement authorities concerned with combating corruption, and establish a secure global platform to facilitate the exchange of information between those authorities to enhance the process of recovering the looted funds,”

The conference discussed a number of decisions that would enhance Arab action in combating corruption, including the speeding of cooperation and sharing of information related to corruption, to ensure that Arab countries not to be a pathways, stations or safe havens for the corrupt and their money; in order to enhance the efforts of Arab countries in drying up the sources of corruption, via the exchange of expertise and experience in strengthening preventive measures to curb corruption, including criminalizing bribery of foreign public officials, establishing responsibility for an ordinary person, as well as strengthening regional cooperation in investigations and prosecution of cross-border corruption cases, including cases in which the proceeds of crime are required to be recovered.

The closing session resulted in a number of important decisions and topics, the most prominent of which was the adoption of the mechanism for implementing the Arab Anti-Corruption Convention, and the adoption of a new mechanism that contributes to strengthening joint Arab action, in addition to discussing the proposal to prepare a draft Arab protocol supplementary to the Arab Anti-Corruption Agreement related to cooperation in the field of recovering funds derived from corruption and smuggled abroad, and the adoption of a decision inviting all states parties to the Arab Agreement to join the Riyadh GLOBE Network initiative, according to the statement.