Iraq sentences banker to 15 years imprisonment for embezzlement

An Iraqi court sentenced on Sunday the assistant director of Al-Rafidain Bank/Al-Khalidiya branch to 15 years in prison and a fine of $10 million over embezzlement of millions of US dollars from the bank’s accounts.

The Iraqi Federal Commission of Integrity (COI) said in a statement that the assistant had “embezzled and transferred the stolen amounts from the Rafidain Bank funds.”

She used the stolen funds to buy shares in two properties and registered the first one which is worth $6,800,000 in her daughter’s name while the second property, which is worth $1,248,000 was registered in her name, according to the same source.

The court has also decided to confiscate the shares in the two properties and return them to the Rafidain Bank, noting that $605,608 and 9,500,000 Iraqi Dinars were returned to the Bank.

The Iraqi authorities have in recent months succeeded in opening several corruption files that resulted in the arrest of dozens of officials, as well as preventing financial waste in the country estimated at millions of US dollars, as part of the governments’ pledges to address the country’s corruption file.

Fighting corruption was a major demand during massive protests that swept the country in October 2019.

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