ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi praised a businessman for exposing an alleged bribery scheme involving a deputy minister of industry and minerals, who was arrested last week, and pledged to protect him and his family, his office said late Sunday.
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s office said that Zaidi commended the "citizen's courage and sense of responsibility,” while saying that he earned the “recognition as a defender of the state.”
He also affirmed that the witness and his family “would receive full protection, emphasizing that such patriotic acts constitute a fundamental pillar in the fight against corruption.”
Zaidi, in coordination with the FCoI, started an anti-corruption bust dubbed "Operation Dawn” in late June. The operation has so far netted dozens of senior government officials, lawmakers, and politicians, in addition to recovering hundreds of billions of Iraqi dinars in corruption cases.
Neither the Iraqi prime minister nor the Federal Commission of Integrity (FCoI) has disclosed details of the arrest, but Iraqi state media identified the official as Nasser Kadhim Jabr on Tuesday.
According to the circulated reports, Jabr was arrested by the FCoI during an extortion attempt against a factory owner in the Muthanna province south of the country.
In his Sunday statement, Zaidi urged “all businesspeople” to follow the example of the whistleblower's action by reporting any “attempt at extortion by unscrupulous officials to ensure that appropriate legal action is taken against them.”
In a video on his office’s Telegram channel, the Iraqi premier was seen telling a young man present in his office along with a middle-aged man - presumably his father - that “whoever threatens you will see me in front of him.”
He later gave the presumed businessmen a sword as a gift.
Haidar al-Aboudi, spokesperson for the Iraqi government, said in late August that “the value of the funds, assets, and properties recovered within the framework of the anti-corruption campaign is estimated at more than 1.359 trillion dinars [more than one billion US dollars].”
Operation Dawn resumes, with the FCoI announcing the arrest of alleged officials as well as the retrieval of funds in individual cases.
The operation started after the arrest of the former deputy oil minister for refining affairs, Adnan al-Jumaili, who was arrested in late May on charges of embezzling around 200 billion Iraqi dinars ($131 million), an investigation that uncovered a broader network of officials across state institutions and led to the seizure of millions of dollars, gold, vehicles, and real estate titles.
