The president of the Iraqi Integrity Commission resigns due to pressure in the face of the "theft of the century" scandal

MADRID, 13 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The president of the Iraqi Integrity Commission, Alaa Jawad al Saadi, has submitted his resignation after regretting the harassment received in the midst of one of the biggest recent economic scandals in the country, the theft of 2,500 million euros in fiscal funds from a Iraqi bank, the so-called "robbery of the century" by the national media, after regretting pressure maneuvers and harassment against his department.

"Because of the national responsibility that has been placed on me and for not clinging to the position, and for not being able to continue in my position, after the smear and projection campaigns to which our institution has been subjected, I present a request to the Prime Minister that relieve me of my post," Al Saadi said in a statement picked up by the official Iraqi news agency INA. Judge Haider Hanun Zayer will assume the interim leadership.

Rampant corruption plagues all levels of the Iraqi state, a country that ranks 157th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, with official figures released last year estimating that more than €400 billion has disappeared from state coffers since dictator Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown in 2003.

The theft was announced in October by the Minister for Petroleum, Ihsan Abdul Jabbar, who explained that an investigation by the Ministry of Finance, a portfolio he directed until his resignation this week, had revealed that "a specific group", without giving details, had had done with 3.7 trillion (with 'b') Iraqi dinars, about 2,500 million euros, in a fund of the national tax authority in the Rafidain bank.

The revelation of the robbery led Jabbar, accused by the United States of "large-scale corruption to accept bribes for the award of oil contracts and operations in Iraq" to lose his previous position as finance minister after a motion of no confidence in the Iraqi Parliament. .

According to documents collected by the Kurdish agency Rudaw, the money was stolen through five companies from the account of the General Tax Commission through the collection of 247 checks issued by the tax office.

The Ministry of Finance issued a lengthy statement detailing the scandal and confirming the arrest of some of the accused officials, while the General Tax Commission confirmed that it had ordered the seizure of the assets of five of its high-ranking officials involved in the case.

However, the results of the investigation are still not fully known and the money is still missing, to the outrage of the UN special representative for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis Plasschaert, who has called on the Iraqi authorities to recover the $2.5 billion. embezzled dollars.

"Do you know what Iraq could have done with the billions that are now missing? Invest in schools, hospitals, energy, water or roads," he said on his Twitter account. "Recover these funds and return them to their rightful owners. Support the Government in your investigations. Ensure accountability."