ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A former Iraqi official who was accused of corruption died of an apparent stroke after being re-arrested by Iraqi security forces in the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi lawmaker who represents the city said, with the official having escaped from prison two days ago. Saad Kumbesh was the former head of the Sunni Endowment Council, the state body that oversees religious properties for Iraq’s Sunni Muslim population. He was sentenced to four years in prison on April 12 as part of a corruption case related to buying a hotel in Erbil by using $36 million of the council’s funds. Iraq’s interior ministry on Thursday evening announced that a “special force” had arrested Kumbesh in Mosul under the direction of Minister Abdul-Amir al-Shammari. But Iraqi MP Sherwan Dubardani told Rudaw shortly after that Kumbesh had passed away from a stroke after being re-arrested and was declared dead before authorities could transport him to a hospital. The interior ministry confirmed his death in a later statement and said that he attempted to escape after security forces tracked his location in a Mosul neighborhood. “The force managed to surround his location, and during the arrest process he tried to escape. As the force started chasing him, he fell ill and his health condition deteriorated,” the ministry statement said, adding that his body arrived to the hospital dead. According to the ministry, Kumbesh was suffering from “chronic diseases” and there were “no external effects of stress” on his body. Earlier on Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani sacked Lieutenant General Hamid Al-Zuhairi, commander of the Special Division in Baghdad, due to “insufficient action taken in response” to Kumbesh’s escape from the prison in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a heavily-guarded area which Zuhairi oversaw security in. Sudani also ordered the closure of the prison and the transfer of all inmates to other jails. From 2020 to 2022, Kumbesh headed the Sunni Endowment Council, a special institution that manages and supervises mosques, shrines, and religious sites of the Sunni population of Iraq. Iraq’s current cabinet led by Sudani has vowed to root out corruption that is endemic in the country and constantly ranks it among the most corrupt in the world.
