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Iraq MP fears assassination if oil thieves are exposed

Video footage has emerged of an Iraqi MP and one of the country’s top anti-graft leaders as saying that he was too afraid to publicly identify those who were responsible for pillaging an oil refinery in northern Iraq.

December 2, 2016 at 9:30 pm

In an interview with Iraqi station Al-Taghier TV, Misha’an Al-Jibouri, a Sunni MP, can be seen to be sat extremely uncomfortably as the programme host asks him a series of questions on a show called “Tahqiq”, the Arabic word for interrogation or investigation.

Al-Jibouri, who is a key figure on the Iraqi parliament’s anti-corruption Transparency Committee, was questioned about the Baiji oil refinery, one of Iraq’s most important oil facilities.

Baiji was the site of fierce battles between Daesh on one side, and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) Shia militias on the other. The refinery was full of expensive equipment before being stripped bare by militias who sold machinery and parts on the black market.

“When the Baiji oil refinery was liberated, around 20 per cent of the refinery was damaged. Now it’s reported to be 85 per cent. How did this happen? I don’t know,” Misha’an said, alluding to the fact that stolen equipment was written off as “damage” by the Iraqi authorities in Baghdad.

Not satisfied with the answer, the host then asked the MP to explain what happened at Baiji. After a short but pronounced silence, Al-Jibouri said “[The equipment] was stolen.”

After being continually pressed on the identity of those who pillaged and looted one of Iraq’s main and most expensive refineries, Al-Jibouri said that he could not say as he feared he would be killed if he exposed the perpetrators of the Baiji heist.

Responding with a colloquial expression, the anti-graft chief said: “A thousands times a coward and never once to have people say ‘may God have mercy on his soul’…I can’t say, and to be honest I’m afraid.”

“I know who [looted Baiji] but I’m scared…Before the eyes of everyone, go ask others, 90 trucks left the refinery [with equipment],” Al-Jibouri claimed, adding that all he knew was that the stolen expensive equipment was taken to Baghdad first, before being sold off elsewhere.

He also said that the government knew what was happening, but could do nothing to stop it, suggesting

“The government knows but they can’t do anything. I messaged the Prime Minister [Haider Al-Abadi] myself on WhatsApp,” the MP complained, adding that “Even the cables and pipes that were underground were stolen. They stole what was above ground and now even what was beneath it.”

Corruption in Iraq rife

Misha’an Al-Jibouri is infamous for telling the Guardian’s Martin Chulov last February that “Everybody is corrupt, from the top of society to the bottom. Everyone. Including me.”

Al-Jibouri even qualified his statement by telling the Guardian that at least he was “honest” about his own corruption, leading many to question how someone who confesses to be corrupt can serve Iraq on one of its highest bodies dealing with transparency and anti-corruption.

“Al-Jibouri is an example of everything that is wrong with Iraq today,” Ahmed Almahmoud of the UK-based Foreign Relations Bureau – Iraq (FRB) told MEMO. FRB is an Iraq media monitoring group that highlights Iraqi government abuses, corruption and other mismanagement.

Almahmoud added: “Of course corruption won’t be tackled when one of Iraq’s top anti-corruption officials admits he himself is corrupt, and that he is too afraid of being murdered if he exposes those more corrupt than himself.”

“Perhaps that is why he was given this position, so that he could cover up for those who work just like him,” Almahmoud explained.

Iraq is notorious for being one of the most corrupt countries on earth since the US-led invasion in 2003 toppled the Saddam Hussein regime. Transparency International, an anti-graft watchdog, ranked Iraq 161 out of 168 in the world in its Corruption Perceptions Index.

Rather than ushering in democracy and transparency, post-invasion Iraq has witnessed more than 13 years of corruption, embezzlement and sectarian violence that has torn the country apart at the seams, leaving it in an almost perpetual state of war and instability.