Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al Sudani announced Thursday the dismissal of the director general of the Civil Aviation Authority and the director of Baghdad airport following a second fire at the facility over the past three days.
Al Sudani, who went to the capital’s airport earlier in the day to analyze the situation together with the Minister of Interior and the head of the Intelligence services, stressed that the director general of Civil Defense and the director of the Criminal Investigations department of the Ministry of Interior have also been dismissed.
The Prime Minister also ordered the continuation of investigations to «determine the real motives» for the two fires at Baghdad airport this week. While the latter has ended without casualties, the flames left two people injured on Monday.
He has therefore called for a «thorough review of the security system and emergency precautions at the airport» and «to review all security measures in all facilities, corridors and buildings,» as reported by the Iraqi television channel Al Sumaria.
Al Sudani approved on Wednesday the creation of a commission to investigate cases of corruption in the country, one of the main commitments of the president since his arrival to power, amid allegations of an endemic problem that prevents improvements in the lives of the country’s population.
«Under direct order of the Prime Minister, Mohamed Shia al Sudani, and in order to combat corruption, in line with the ministerial program (…) the Integrity Commission has recalled an exceptional authority called the High Anti-Corruption Commission,» the Prime Minister’s office said.
Thus, it has specified in a statement that the objective of this new body is «to accelerate the treatment of major corruption cases and to work for the extradition of persons wanted for corruption crimes and to recover embezzled money».
«His Excellency has ordered to form a special support team with wide powers to give full support to the High Anti-Corruption Commission in investigating these cases,» he said, before stressing that this team will be led by the director general of the Ministry of Interior, Abdelkarim Abdel Fadel.
In this regard, he revealed that the Prime Minister «has ordered that all the processes required by the Constitution and the laws be faithfully followed by the support team, especially in the field of human rights,» according to the statement published on his official website.
Earlier on Sunday, the chairman of the Integrity Commission, Alaa Yauad al Saadi, resigned in connection with one of the biggest recent economic scandals in the country, the theft of 2.5 billion euros in tax funds from an Iraqi bank, the so-called «theft of the century» by the national media.
Rampant corruption plagues all levels of the Iraqi state, which ranks 157th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s corruption perception index, and official figures released last year estimate that more than 400 billion euros have disappeared from state coffers since the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003.
