KTFA: Samson: “Anti-Corruption”: Britain Includes 10 Billion Dollars Of Looted Iraqi Funds
19th February, 2022
A former member of the Anti-Corruption Council, Saeed Yassin, revealed on Saturday that there are 10 billion dollars of looted Iraqi funds in Britain, noting that countries are evading in meeting the requirements because these funds have been integrated into national economies.
Yassin said in a statement reported by the newspaper “Al-Sabah” and seen by “The Information”, that “Iraq has legal measures that it must take in pursuit of its looted funds, and according to the report of the Integrity Commission, which indicated that there are files to recover funds that were prepared for the claim, but we need inside Iraq. to legal and judicial procedures related to the quality of judgments.
He pointed out that “the need to know the addresses, residence and residence of the wanted persons inside and outside Iraq, and we also need to match the legal concepts between Iraq and the countries of the sanctuary for money, accused, convicts and wanted persons, and we also need to invest (the United Nations Convention against Corruption) with the states of the parties in addition to (the Arab Convention against Corruption).
By concluding a framework agreement for countries and concluding bilateral agreements with the sanctuary countries in order to establish a recovery mechanism, because there are crimes criminalized in Iraq and the same crime is not criminalized in the sanctuary countries.”
He explained that “the countries evade meeting the requirements because these funds have been integrated into the national economies, which means that in the event of freezing, seizing and recovering these funds to Iraq, they will affect the economies of those countries, which requires Iraq in the event of seizure, freezing and approval to recover these funds from the countries.
That there be a timetable, and the most important thing is to register these funds in the name of Iraq, and then the stage of corruption returns comes, and this is important if these funds work and have returns in those countries.”
Yassin pointed out that “in the economic activities of these funds, there are returns that must be included in the recovery process, as we have the origin of the amount and the proceeds of this stolen amount.” He explained that “regardless of the countries, some of them were mentioned casually, including Britain, which is suspected of having ten billion dollars.” Of the looted Iraqi money as real estate, and the same is found in Jordan and Lebanon, and in the latter there is an economic collapse and the money that is to be recovered is affected.”
The expert and activist in the fight against corruption stressed, “Iraq’s need for international cooperation, in the sense of exchanging legal information and exchanging criminals, and before recovery, we need preventive measures on the movement of funds and filling legal loopholes in Iraq, including the legislation of the law of contracts, tenders and government procurement, not to be instructions, in addition to not setting an exception for any institution to conduct contracts without a commitment to competition and direct invitation to one party and not to several parties, that is, those contracts are referred to the private sector entities to compete.
Yassin noted, “the need to control remittances because there are suspicions that the money transferred abroad for import is not equivalent to the amount of goods supplied to Iraq,” and explains that “when remittances are $45 billion abroad for import, we monitor commodity revenue not equal to more than $15 billion.”
He pointed out that “the need to know the shareholders of these companies from which imports are made and which operate inside Iraq, and who are the participants? And members of the board of directors, are they politicians of the rank of general manager or above? This is a task to open the issue of graft and apply the principle (where did you get this?).”
