News / Iraq

Iraq sentences former governor to jail for misuse of public assets

Tuesday, 21 November 2017 4:31 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 21 November 2017 7:14 PM ]

Amer Salman Yaqoub, the former governor of Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala

The Iraqi Commission of Integrity, a body responsible for investigating corruption and affiliated to the country’s parliament, says judiciary officials have sentenced a former governor of the eastern province of Diyala to jail after being found guilty of corruption.

Diyala’s Second Criminal Court handed down a seven-year prison sentence to Amer Salman Yaqoub in absentia in accordance with Article 340 of the Iraqi Penal Code for “unlawful damage to property held for official purposes.”

The court noted that fugitive Yaqoub wasted public assets and paid 2.765 billion of Iraqi dinars ($2.348 million) to a company for the construction of two power transmission lines, approximately seven kilometers long, to a substation in al-Khalis district

The Diyala court, after reviewing the statements of legal representatives of the provincial council as well as those from Diyala Electricity Department, found that the company had not completed even one kilometer of the project, despite being fully paid.

The independent commission stated that Yaqoub was found guilty for violating the duties of his job and causing intentional damage to public assets worth nearly three billion dinars.

On October 30, Iraqi criminal court sentenced former Dohuk governor Tamar Ramazan to ten years in prison on charges of corruption.

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