Kurdistan
Undated photo of the theme park Chavy Land in Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region. Photo: Chavy Land/Facebook
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A bussinessman from Sulaimani has purchased 60 properties belonging to opposition leader Shaswar Abdulwahid at a public auction organized by the Kurdistan Region’s finance ministry to recover debts owed by the jailed politician.
Reporting from the finance ministry’s directorate in Sulaimani, Rudaw’s correspondent Peshawa Bakhtiyar said an investor from Sulaimani bought the assets - which include lands, hotels, cafeterias, and tourist cabins - for 90 billion Iraqi dinars (around $68.5 million at the central bank exchange rate).
In early September, the finance ministry announced that Abdulwahid’s properties would be auctioned to repay debts amounting to nearly 92 billion dinars (around $70 million). The ministry said it had issued “several warnings” to Abdulwahid’s Nalia and Chavi companies to settle their loans and resolve “non-compliance” issues before deciding to exercise its “legal right to sell all the properties through public auction.”
Last week, the ministry stated that all 60 properties under Chavi Company would be sold “in one package,” without mentioning Nalia Company. In August, authorities had also shut down Abdulwahid’s Chavi Land theme park in Sulaimani - one of the largest in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region - over alleged tax violations.
Bidders were required to deposit five million dinars (about $3,800) as assurance before participating in the auction. Representatives of Chavi Company attended the session.
Abdulwahid, who leads the New Generation Movement (NGM), has been imprisoned since mid-August after Sulaimani security forces arrested him based on a judicial order revealing that he had been sentenced in absentia to six months under Article 431 of the Iraqi Penal Code for making serious threats. The court later reduced the sentence to five months.
The case stems from a 2021 complaint filed by Shadi Nawzad, a former NGM lawmaker.
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