The Heist of the Century… the Judiciary announces issuing directives to recover the funds

INA-  BAGHDAD 

Judge of the Karkh Investigation Court, First Judge Dhiyaa Jaafar, revealed new directives issued by the President of the Supreme Judicial Council regarding the recovery of funds, and he clarified the procedures for lifting the seizure of some of defendants’ property, the defendants in the heist of the century.


Details of the judicial meeting

Judge Jaafar said, in an interview with the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that "the issue of combating corruption is one of the crises the country is going through," noting that "an expanded meeting was held recently in the headquarters  of the Supreme Judicial Council, in the presence of the President of the Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Faeq Zidan.

He pointed out that "the meeting resulted in directives from the Supreme Judicial Council, which included the necessity of working to recover the sums of money obtained by a number of the accused, and the perpetrators of financial and administrative corruption crimes."

The Judge stated: “During the past periods, the Iraqi judiciary began to focus on another topic as well, which is the issue of contracts in which errors and violations occurred, or contracts that include suspicions of unfairness in the interest of the state,” pointing out that “we have begun recent steps on this issue, pointing out that “We have reached advanced stages regarding conducting settlements and returning all sums of money to the state, as some of the sums of money have been paid, in addition to the fact that there are committees formed to reformulate the contract in a logical and proper manner as required by the rules of justice, with many cases that began to be presented during the recent periods.

Heist of the Century File

Judge Jaafar stated that "the document that was spread about lifting the seizure of the property of the accused (Nour Zuhair) is clear, and indicates that the accused paid sums of money deposited in the state treasury, and as a result, the seizure was lifted from the property or from the company, whose amount was paid in full to the state treasury," stressing  that there is no complete lifting of the seizure of the movable and immovable funds of the accused, as the rest of his money is seized for the interest of the state according to the available data, which are a number of projects and companies that continue under the decision of seizure.
Involvement of media figures in the Heist of the Century

He indicated that "there are legal measures taken against a journalist and a person associated with a media institution for their request for sums of money estimated at 3 million dollars, and investigations have been conducted and are still ongoing," explaining that "the journalist and the other person have been summoned, one of whom has appeared before the court and the other has not yet appeared, and measures may be taken against him to compel him to appear in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the investigations are still in the beginning.

The case of Haitham al-Jubouri 

He stated that "what happened with regard to the accused, Haitham al-Jubouri, is that he appeared before the Integrity Commission and explained his legitimate sources, and because the commission was not convinced of the sources of funds, he submitted to the courts a report containing suspicion of inflation with his money amounting to 17 billion dinars," pointing out that "he was interrogated in court  In a fundamental manner regarding the sources of his funds, he did not present anything new, but rather presented some legal defenses regarding the sources of funds, as part of them were rejected by the court and the other part was referred to the directorate for external auditing to conduct audits and indicate whether there is a difference or that it reduces the value of the inflation that occurred.

Illegal gain 

Jaafar confirmed that "the illegal gain mentioned in the Integrity Commission Law No. 30 of 2011 and amended in 2019 includes new provisions, and that these provisions are part of its dangerous vocabulary as it is not only related to state employees, but may also include non-employees. The applications of this law require high accuracy and care.

 He pointed out, "We are keen on two aspects: the first: that we take legal measures against all persons who affected the account of the government institution, and the second: is to collect evidence in a logical manner so that we can be assured that whoever took legal measures against him deserved to be charged with these charges."

Jaafar stated, "The Supreme Anti-Corruption Committee investigates many cases, and it works silently and steadily on the issue of collecting evidence and presenting information," pointing out that "our procedures are based on objective and logical evidence without basing investigations and collecting information on personal matters."  

He stressed that "the members of the Supreme Commission work according to a clear and correct strategy in the preventive aspect and law enforcement after completing the investigations in a legal manner, and the stages of collecting inferences are logical, based on investigations and clear logical evidence indicating the commission of a crime."