Police officer held over $15,000 bribe to bring detainee under amnesty law

NINEVEH — The Federal Commission of Integrity said it has arrested a police officer in Nineveh accused of seeking a $15,000 bribe to alter a detainee’s statement and change the date of an offence so the detainee would qualify under the General Amnesty Law.

The officer heads one of the governorate’s police directorates and sat on the investigative committee handling the case, the commission said. In a separate operation under judicial warrant, investigators caught an intermediary receiving the money, which the commission said was to be passed to the officer. Both were presented to an investigative judge, who ordered them detained. The operations were run with the Nineveh Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Directorate and Nineveh Police Command, which executed the arrest warrant.

Parliament amended the 2016 General Amnesty Law in January 2025, changing eligibility provisions including the definition of affiliation with terrorist organisations, and opening avenues for retrial where convictions were alleged to rest on coerced confessions or secret informants.