ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The government of Iraq will work with the Kurdish officials at the international airports in Erbil and Sulaimani in a bid to prevent citizens charged with corruption or wanted by the law from leaving the county.
“The Iraqi Commission of Integrity has planned to create coordination through the board of Erbil-Baghdad relations to prevent corrupt Iraqi leaders who are wanted by the court and with arrest warrants from traveling abroad,” Hassan Yasiri, head of the Iraqi Commission of Integrity, said on Monday in a statement.
The commission has sent a list of wanted Iraqi officials to representatives of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Baghdad, according to the statement.
“Names that were given to the KRG representative board in Baghdad include 2,171 administrative officials that are charged with corruption and they must be arrested before they flee," Yasiri said.
Yasiri said that since the beginning of 2015, the Iraqi Commission of Integrity has worked on 13,398 corruption cases submitted by the government and in conjunction with the court system.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced a series of cost-cutting reforms that included abolishing the deputy president and deputy prime minister posts. He also reduced the number of official bodyguards.
On Monday, Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr called on Iraqis to stage mass demonstrations against official corruption this week, urging authorities to heed public demands for a clean government.
