ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A Baghdad court on Sunday sentenced a former Iraqi minister and a general manager from the same ministry each to two years in prison for corruption, after $25 million went missing from projects planned for the capital. The Supreme Judicial Council issued a statement on Sunday, saying that the criminal court of Karkh (the western half of Baghdad) sentenced Riad al-Gharib, a former minister of Construction, Housing, Municipalities, and Public Works, and his colleague Hashem Abdel-Zahra to prison for public money that went missing in 2007. Gharib served as minister between 2006 and 2010, continuing as a member of parliament for Karbala until 2018. He was a member of the State of Law Coalition led by former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. The court, which specializes in integrity cases, issued its ruling for "breaching the contracts of setting up (17) asphalt plants with a value of 25 million dollars in 2007." The court has given the right to the Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works to demand compensation for the damages caused by the breach. Iraq's Integrity Commission recovered more than a trillion Iraqi dinars (approximately one billion USD) in 2020, according to an annual report issued by the commission on Thursday. Sixty-three senior officials, all ministers and those of the same rank, have since been accused of corruption, but only four have been convicted, the report added. Since 2012, more than a billion dollars have been recovered from abroad, in addition to seizing fourteen properties and five shares in different companies, the report added. "Some countries refuse to hand over the looted funds to Iraq," Alia Nsaif , a member of the Iraqi parliament's integrity committee told state media, also stressing the need to create laws and agreements to recover the funds. Worsening corruption in Iraq was emphasised by the chief of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) in August. "Corruption remains endemic, and its economic cost untold as it continues to steal desperately needed resources from the everyday Iraqi, eroding investor confidence," UNAMI chief Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in her virtual address to the UN Security Council. Iraq is one of the top 20 most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International. Some $450 billion in public funds have vanished into the pockets of shady politicians and businessmen since the 2003 US-led invasion, a study by parliament found.
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