In the absence of Zuhair and Al-Jabouri.. The Iraqi judiciary decides to arrest the guarantors and set a new date for the trial
In the absence of Zuhair and Al-Jabouri.. The Iraqi judiciary decides to arrest the guarantors and set a new date for the trial
2024-09-09 01:45
Shafaq News/ The Iraqi judiciary decided, on Monday, to detain 6 guarantors of the main defendants in the “theft of the century” (Nour Zuhair and Haitham Al-Jubouri), and set a new date for their trial.
MP Mustafa Sand said in a video clip from the corridors of the Central Criminal Court for Combating Corruption, “As usual, the accused Nour Zuhair did not attend, nor did the accused Haitham Al-Jubouri, as the date of her pleading coincided with the same day.”
He added, “The six guarantors, 3 for Nour Zuhair and 3 for Haitham Al-Jubouri, were arrested and sent under guard to the Karkh Misdemeanor Court.”
He pointed out that “November 21, 2024, has been set as the date for the next hearing,” explaining that “there are procedures that take a month to be published in the newspaper, and then legal procedures to issue an arrest warrant for the red notice in Interpol.”
The “theft of the century” is the disappearance of 3.7 trillion Iraqi dinars, equivalent to about two and a half billion dollars, from tax trust funds. Several parties revealed the theft about two months before the end of the term of the previous Iraqi government headed by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.
An official letter issued by the Tax Authority revealed that an amount of $2.5 billion was withdrawn between September 2021 and August 2022 from the government-owned Rafidain Bank, through 247 financial checks, issued to 5 companies, which disbursed them directly in cash.
Following the discovery of the theft, the Integrity Commission and the judiciary moved to investigate the case, and several judicial arrest warrants were issued. The first to be arrested was Nour Zuhair, whose full name is Nour Zuhair Jassim Al-Muzaffar, and whose nickname is Abu Fatima. He was born in Baghdad in 1980.
In 2023, the Iraqi judiciary decided to lift the seizure order on a company affiliated with Zuhair, and then the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, announced that the first accused in the “theft of the century” had distributed his money to influential people, including “politicians and media figures,” hinting at an increase in the number of accused.
At that time, Al-Sudani also announced that the competent judge (Diaa Jaafar) issued an order to release Nour Zuhair “on bail”, in exchange for his pledge to hand over the entire stolen amount within a period of two weeks, noting that the largest part of the amount held by the accused is in the form of real estate and property.
shafaq.com
