Two Gorran MPs to be tried in court after immunity lifted by parliament
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Two Gorran (Change) members of Kurdish parliament are to be tried in court after their immunities were lifted and a lawsuit filed against them for alleged defamation.
“We have officially received a notice from court, to be tried in accordance with Article 433 of the Iraqi Penal Code. We signed it and we will go to court voluntarily, we will prove what we have said on smuggling with documents,” MPs Ali Hama Salih and Daban Mohammed said in a joint statement on Sunday.
The court order was issued on March 3 and directed to parliament’s presidency.
“The court will either decide independently and prove our words [correct], or will sentence us to one to five years in prison, because we will not pay any settlements to the smugglers,” said the MPs, who added that they hope the court would maintain its independence.
The Kurdistan Region Parliament lifted the immunity of the two MPs in response to a court request in Sulaimani province’s town of Penjwen in mid-December, asking the legislative body to strip them of their office’s guaranteed protection from prosecution.
The request came after one of the Region’s border crossings with Iran, Bashmakh, filed a defamation suit against the MPs, claiming they had unjustly harmed the reputation of the institution by accusing it of being a site of cross-border smuggling.
The two MPs had previously expressed concern over smuggling taking place at the Kurdistan Region’s border crossings on several occasions through social media and on TV.
Salih in a December 11 press conference said if “steps are not taken” to “end the obvious smuggling going on at the border crossings” among other issues, then “Kurdistan is going to enter a very dark period.”
In September 2020, a network that smuggled hundreds of millions of dinars' worth of goods into the Kurdistan Region through the Parvizkhan crossing was uncovered after an investigation by the Region's finance ministry and customs directorate.
Three weeks later, the spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region’s deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani announced that the government had formed a committee to study the issue of smuggling "in detail."
"This so-called smuggling definitely exists at border crossings – not at one specific border crossing, but all those present in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region,” spokesperson Samir Hawrami said.
The Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) interior and Peshmerga ministries were tasked by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on January 7 with forming a new joint force to prevent “violations and illegal movement” at the Kurdistan Region’s border crossings.
“We have officially received a notice from court, to be tried in accordance with Article 433 of the Iraqi Penal Code. We signed it and we will go to court voluntarily, we will prove what we have said on smuggling with documents,” MPs Ali Hama Salih and Daban Mohammed said in a joint statement on Sunday.
The court order was issued on March 3 and directed to parliament’s presidency.
“The court will either decide independently and prove our words [correct], or will sentence us to one to five years in prison, because we will not pay any settlements to the smugglers,” said the MPs, who added that they hope the court would maintain its independence.
The Kurdistan Region Parliament lifted the immunity of the two MPs in response to a court request in Sulaimani province’s town of Penjwen in mid-December, asking the legislative body to strip them of their office’s guaranteed protection from prosecution.
The request came after one of the Region’s border crossings with Iran, Bashmakh, filed a defamation suit against the MPs, claiming they had unjustly harmed the reputation of the institution by accusing it of being a site of cross-border smuggling.
The two MPs had previously expressed concern over smuggling taking place at the Kurdistan Region’s border crossings on several occasions through social media and on TV.
Salih in a December 11 press conference said if “steps are not taken” to “end the obvious smuggling going on at the border crossings” among other issues, then “Kurdistan is going to enter a very dark period.”
In September 2020, a network that smuggled hundreds of millions of dinars' worth of goods into the Kurdistan Region through the Parvizkhan crossing was uncovered after an investigation by the Region's finance ministry and customs directorate.
Three weeks later, the spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region’s deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani announced that the government had formed a committee to study the issue of smuggling "in detail."
"This so-called smuggling definitely exists at border crossings – not at one specific border crossing, but all those present in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region,” spokesperson Samir Hawrami said.
The Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) interior and Peshmerga ministries were tasked by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on January 7 with forming a new joint force to prevent “violations and illegal movement” at the Kurdistan Region’s border crossings.