An international conference to recover Iraqi looted funds
Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, presented the file of Iraq’s looted and smuggled funds outside the country, through an international conference currently held in the capital, Baghdad, amid hopes of achieving progress in this file, and recovering hundreds of billions of Iraqi dollars.
The international conference comes as part of a plan recently launched by Al-Kazemi to expand the tools to fight corruption, to include external parties, after the tangible progress that has been achieved during the last period, such as the arrest of political leaders involved in corruption files.
During the opening of the international conference in Baghdad, Al-Kazemi stressed that corruption and terrorism are two sides of the same coin, stressing the recovery of Iraq’s looted funds.
“The path to a rational state begins with frankness with our people about the flaws that led to the decline of a great country like Iraq,” Al-Kazemi said in his speech.
“Our main goal is to fight corruption, so we formed a special anti-corruption committee that did its duty with the Integrity Commission, the judicial authorities, and the Ministry of Justice and Financial Control”, al- Kazemi went on to say, “within one year, this committee uncovered corruption files that had not been revealed for 17 years, and recovered money looted from abroad.”
The conference is held under the auspices of Al-Kazemi and with the participation of Arab League President Ahmed Abou Al Gheit, a number of justice ministers, heads of judicial councils and supervisory bodies, as well as a number of representatives of Arab associations and organizations, legal, academic and media figures related to the issue of combating corruption.
Through the conference, Iraq hopes to address important topics related to the issues of recovering looted funds and smuggled assets, finding ways to facilitate their recovery operations, and preventing the provision of safe environments and havens for them.
Inas Abdulkareem