Basra official caught taking alleged bribe

Shafaq News- Basra

Iraq’s Federal Commission of Integrity (CoI) on Tuesday detained an accounts director at an enforcement office in Basra after catching him receiving money the commission said was a bribe at his workplace.

An investigative team had set up a sting operation at the Abu al-Khasib Enforcement Directorate, where the official was allegedly found accepting money in exchange for processing an enforcement request for a member of the public.

Investigators acted under a judicial warrant and referred the suspect to an investigative judge, who ordered his detention pending investigation.

Separately, the CoI said it arrested seven suspects in three operations in Baghdad involving alleged bribery and fraud. Four suspects —three electricity directorate employees and a broker— were accused of taking money to destroy a case file involving an illegal connection to the power grid, while two other electricity workers allegedly accepted a bribe to avoid imposing a fine. A seventh suspect was accused of defrauding a woman by claiming he could process official documents for her deceased brother. Judicial authorities ordered all seven to be detained pending investigation.

Read more: Iraq's Dawn Crackdown moves from raids to rulings