Mysterious endings for the 6 Integrity Commission presidents... and President No. 7 joins the list o

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[size=52]Mysterious endings for the 6 Integrity Commission presidents... and President No. 7 joins the list of those “forcibly removed”![/size]

[size=45]Baghdad/ Tamim Al-Hassan[/size]
[size=45]Haidar Hanoun, the seventh head of the Integrity Commission, has joined the fate of his predecessors, all of whom – without exception – left the position “forcefully”.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani appointed Mohammed Ali al-Lami as head of the Integrity Commission, succeeding Hanoun, who he decided to appoint as an advisor at the Ministry of Justice.
Hanoun had been investigated last month over concerns about “audio leaks” related to bribery cases, following the latter’s provocative statements regarding the so-called “theft of the century.”
The Integrity Committee in Parliament does not yet have any information about the case, nor has it provided an explanation for the “mysterious endings” of the commission’s heads.
Six commission heads who preceded Hanoun left the position after controversy, suspicions, and accusations of corruption, while one of them was killed in a traffic accident, which was believed to have been premeditated.
Al-Sudani appointed Hanoun as a special advisor at the Ministry of Justice for his legal and judicial experience, after the Council of Ministers voted to approve the appointment decision.
Information had been circulated that the trial date of the acting head of the Integrity Commission, Haider Hanoun, would be on Tuesday (the day before yesterday), before the Karkh Misdemeanor Court.
According to this information, Hanoun faces three lawsuits before the Karkh Misdemeanor Court, in addition to a second trial on Wednesday (yesterday), before the Karkh Criminal Court for two lawsuits.
The head of the Integrity Commission may be sentenced to “imprisonment” due to the five lawsuits filed against him.
On October 7, it was leaked to the media that the Karkh Investigation Court issued an arrest warrant against the head of the Integrity Commission, Haider Hanoun, after deciding to open an investigation with him regarding his receipt of bribes, according to an audio leak attributed to him. On September
11, the Third Karkh Investigation Court had previously received a request from the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Faiq Zidane, to conduct an investigation into the audio recordings attributed to the acting head of the Integrity Commission, Haider Hanoun, which include crimes of receiving bribes.
Last September, Haider Hanoun said during a press conference in Erbil that the judge of the Karkh Investigation Court specializing in integrity, Diaa Jaafar, was detaining employees “to tarnish my reputation,” hinting at his “cover-up” of cases related to Nour Zuhair, who “disappeared” when she arrived at him.
At the moment of Hanoun’s assignment
, the Judicial Council considered what Haider Hanoun had stated in two press conferences “merely incorrect allegations intended to mislead public opinion and were a reaction to taking legal action against him regarding the subject of the plot of land allocated to the Real Estate Registration Department in Maysan.”
Al-Sudani had assigned Hanoun to head the Integrity Commission in 2022. Hanoun was considered a leader in the Badr Organization led by Hadi al-Amiri, according to what was circulated in the media at the time.
At that time, pictures were circulated on social media platforms showing Hanoun as a candidate for the “Fatah Alliance” led by Al-Ameri in the 2018 elections.
After he was appointed to the position, rumors spread about him being previously accused of corruption, but the Judicial Council denied this in an official statement.
Meanwhile, Basem Khashan, a member of the Integrity Committee in Parliament, denied knowing about “Hanoun’s dismissal” from his position. Khashan expressed surprise at “the news of Hanoun’s dismissal and then his appointment as an advisor in the Ministry of Justice,” and said, “If he was corrupt, how was he appointed to another high-ranking position?”
Khashan considered the audio leaks attributed to the head of integrity to be “fake.”
Meanwhile, Khashan did not provide any clear explanation for the “mysterious reasons” at the end of each head of integrity’s term.
In 2022, Hanoun joined the Supreme Anti-Corruption Commission, which is concerned with “recovering the country’s looted funds,” headed by Abu Ali al-Basri, head of the National Security Service.
Last year, the Integrity Commission issued arrest warrants for four senior officials in the previous government, including former Finance Minister Ali Allawi.
Judge Haider Hanoun said that Iraq will seek to obtain red notices from Interpol and hand over the suspects.
Strange Endings
Hanoun was appointed to the position after the resignation of Alaa al-Saadi, who was considered close to Nouri al-Maliki, the leader of the State of Law Coalition.
Al-Saadi said in his resignation statement that he decided to resign due to “the smear and defamation campaigns that the commission was subjected to.” Al-Saadi
was appointed in 2020, the second time after he was first appointed to the same position in 2011, following the tragic end of his predecessor, Judge Tawfiq Ezzat, who died in a car accident.
There were suspicions that the traffic accident that the last judge was involved in between Dohuk and Erbil governorates was planned, especially since it came at a time when Izzat was preparing to uncover several corruption files.
The accident also came a few weeks after former Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi activated the Supreme Council for Combating Corruption, in which the Integrity Commission is an original party, and Judge Izzat announced that there were 40 joints in the state that were tainted with corruption.
Judge Izzat was appointed to the Integrity Commission in 2009, and was assigned twice to head the commission, the first time in 2011, after the former head of the commission, Rahim Al-Akeili, was removed from the position and sentenced to 7 years in absentia, and the second time in June 2018, after his predecessor, Hassan Al-Yasiri, announced his resignation from the position.
Hassan Al-Yasiri, the last head of the commission before Judge Izzat, admitted that he resigned from his position because he “despaired” of fighting corruption in Iraq.
Judge Musa Faraj also left his position without clear reasons in 2008 and requested to be referred to retirement and isolated himself in the city of Samawah.
The first head of the Integrity Commission, Judge Radhi al-Radhi, had fled Iraq after 3 years as head of the commission, following accusations leveled against him by Maliki in 2007.
Maliki said in his statement that he (al-Radhi) “may have done some work and may have hidden some papers or tampered with some papers before he left, but all of this will be subject to the follow-up and prosecution of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi judiciary to summon him and return him to Iraq to be tried under the accusations leveled against him.”
The Integrity Commission is often accused of being a “political tool” in the hands of the government. Parties struggle to control this position under the pretext of quotas and electoral entitlement.
A parallel state!
Meanwhile, academic and political researcher Ihsan al-Shammari considered the strange endings of the heads of the Integrity Commission to be “remarkable.”
Al-Shammari attributed the similarity in the fates of the commission’s heads to the fact that the corruption system in Iraq after 2003 is larger than the oversight bodies, and has become an equivalent of the state, and possesses political tools and cover.”
“Therefore, these oversight bodies, including the Integrity Commission, clash with the parallel state, and then none of the former presidents will be able to protect themselves,” he added.
Al-Shammari, a professor of public policy at the University of Baghdad, said, “Some heads of the bodies were serious about holding corruption accountable, but they clashed with these political wills.”
Al-Shammari considered that the structure of the regime and the parties that participated in establishing the political system are complicit in corruption issues, so they find themselves “much above these oversight institutions.” Al-
Shammari, who also heads the Center for Political Thought, pointed out that “the commission is subject to quotas, and in many cases the government is unable to protect it, especially if it clashes with some sensitive files.”
Al-Shammari continued, “Therefore, in this corrupt environment, the heads of the commission cannot find themselves able to fight corruption, so many of them are forced to resign or be dismissed, as a result of their knowledge of what is happening in the country.”[/size]
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