ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The head of the Iraqi parliament’s investment committee was disqualified from the upcoming parliamentary elections due to his alleged involvement in two crimes. The lawmaker has appealed the decision.
Hasan Qasim al-Khafaji, chairman of the parliamentary investment and development committee, has been barred from running in the elections due to two criminal records from 2004 and 2015, Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said in a statement.
Khafaji denied the allegations. “One of the records go back to 2004 when there was a shootout in Baghdad, and as a result, I was among thirty people detained by the American forces. I was later released because there was no evidence I was involved,” he told Rudaw on Tuesday.
He added that he was also accused of “smuggling goods across the border” ten years ago, but asserted that “there is no evidence to back that as well.”
Khafaji stressed that he is contesting the decision and “waiting for the court to resolve the matter.”
Imad Jamil, IHEC’s head of media, explained that Khafaji has two names - Hassanein and Hassan - and that the criminal charges are under the Hassanein name.
“In the previous elections, he ran with Hassanein, but apparently there was not enough evidence to disqualify him,” Jamil told Rudaw.
At least 542 candidates have so far been disqualified from running for the parliamentary vote, Jamil told state media on Tuesday.
Among that number, 253 were disqualified for ties to the banned Baath party of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, under the Accountability and Justice Act.
Passed in 2008, the Accountability and Justice Act governs the practice of de-Baathification, defined as the procedures to “intellectually, administratively, politically, culturally and economically dismantle the Baath party system in Iraqi society, state institutions, and civil society institutions."
Iraq will hold parliamentary elections on November 11.
Approximately 27 million citizens in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region will have the right to vote, but only those with biometric voting cards will be able to cast a ballot.