Four Baghdad public employees arrested in bribery stings

BAGHDAD — Four public employees, three of them municipal staff, were arrested in three bribery operations across Baghdad, accused of taking money to hold off enforcement or to push through official paperwork, the Federal Commission of Integrity said Monday.

In Abu Ghraib, investigators caught the head of the municipal violations department allegedly taking a bribe in exchange for not removing an illegal encroachment on state land, the commission said. In Sadr City, two municipal employees were arrested allegedly accepting a bribe from a bakery owner after agreeing to remove concrete barriers from in front of his bakery. At the Rusafa Enforcement Directorate, an employee was arrested on accusations of demanding an inspection fee connected to the eviction of a property.

The operations were carried out by a team from the Investigation and Arrest Department of the commission’s Baghdad Investigation Directorate. Judges at the Rusafa investigation court for integrity, money laundering and economic crime cases and the Second Karkh Investigation Court ordered all four detained.

The commission has reported a string of bribery cases in recent months. On Saturday it said three electricity employees had been arrested in Mosul on suspicion of demanding a bribe from a resident to cancel a fictitious fine for illegally tapping the grid. In late August, the Central Anti-Corruption Criminal Court sentenced the director general of the state-owned General Company for Electric Power Production in the Middle Euphrates and his office director to six years in prison for bribery, and in June the commission said it had arrested six employees at the Giman customs crossing in Kirkuk governorate accused of taking bribes to approve customs transactions.