The investigation department of Iraq’s Commission of Integrity has issued an arrest warrant for Kadhem Finjan al-Hamami, a former transport minister accused of wasting state funds by sending Iraqi Airways (IA, Baghdad) employees to work in fake airline offices in three other countries.
The warrant was issued due to allegations of deliberate harm inflicted on the finances of the state-owned flag carrier.
According to a statement from the commission, a judge at the Central Anti-Corruption Investigation Court in Rusafa, a suburb of Baghdad, which specialises in examining integrity cases, “issued an arrest and investigation order against a former minister of transport in the case related to violations in the transfer of employees and their placements to work for Iraqi Airways in a number of cities.”
It elaborated that he had “placed employees in Spain, Sweden, and Tunisia despite the absence of Iraqi Airways offices in those countries.” It also noted that “the commission had announced on July 18 last year the issuance of an order to summon the accused in this same case.”
While the statement did not mention the minister’s name, the newspaper Shafaq quoted sources as confirming it was Al-Hamami.
In March 2023, the Commission of Integrity announced that Al-Hamami had been sentenced to “maximum imprisonment” after being found guilty of corruption. Sentenced in absentia, he had reportedly tampered with contracts and tenders during his tenure from 2014 to 2018. He currently lives outside the country, an official at the agency told the Agence France-Presse news agency at the time.
