Iraq's former electricity minister handed suspended prison sentence

Iraq’s former electricity minister has been handed a one-year suspended prison sentence over charges relating to corruption and wasting public funds, according to the country’s anti-fraud body.

The Iraqi integrity commission, which deals with corruption cases, said a Baghdad court also fined Louay Al Khateeb one million Iraqi dinars (about $700).

Three other former officials from the electricity ministry were handed similar sentences.

Al Khateeb and the officials were accused of giving a multimillion-dollar contract to a company without proper credentials.

The integrity commission said they committed “deliberate irregularities” in awarding the $808 million contract to the company, which has not been named.

The contract was for the “rehabilitation, management and maintenance” of a Baghdad power station.

However, the company “is not specialised in the maintenance and rehabilitation of power stations”, the commission said.

Al Khateeb issued a statement on Facebook in response to the court's verdict.

“I would like to clarify that the sentence is based on employee negligence, which is outside the general framework of corruption, and that this decision is preliminary, and subject to appeal, and after the appeal, a final decision will be taken,” he wrote.

He said the ministry itself had not filed a complaint against him and his colleagues.

“I need to add that there is no waste of public money because the contract was suspended and was not implemented. It was just an open bid for qualified companies to take the contract,” he said.

Al Khateeb took office in October 2018 after the formation of the new Iraqi government and left office in May 2020.

The integrity commission imposed a travel ban on him that year, pending investigation of alleged offences in the hiring of 82,555 daily workers. Security forces had also raided his home in Baghdad in 2020.

Al Khateeb has said he believes he was made a scapegoat for the government's mismanagement.

Iraq is ranked among the world's 20 most corrupt countries by Transparency International, an anti-corruption non-government organisation.

The electricity ministry is viewed as one of the most corrupt state institutions by Iraqis, many of whom expressed disappointment at the sentence given to Al Khateeb.

“This is a reward … not a sentence for corruption,” Mustafa Saadoun, the head of the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights, wrote on Twitter.

Iraq's power grid is plagued by daily failures, often lasting hours, particularly during the summer months when households rely on air conditioning to counter temperatures that regularly reach 50ºC.

Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi said that nearly $60 billion has been spent on the country's electricity sector since the US-led invasion in 2003.

But the majority of the funds have been lost to corruption and mismanagement.

This year, former deputy electricity minister Raad Al Haris was sentenced to six years in jail for corruption and mismanagement.

The Rusafa Criminal Court in Baghdad also fined him $10 million, based on the findings of an investigation.

His conviction related to receiving “financial bribes” and “the assignment of the electricity ministry’s project to affiliated sub-companies”, the court said.

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