Integrity Commission seeks Italian help recovering assets and extraditing suspects

BAGHDAD — The Federal Commission of Integrity is seeking closer cooperation with Italian anti-corruption agencies on recovering assets and extraditing suspects, its head, Mohammed Ali al-Lami, told Italian Ambassador Niccolò Fontana.

Lami called for stronger coordination under the UN Convention against Corruption, which Iraq joined in 2007, on prevention, enforcement, legal assistance and the cross-border recovery of money and wanted people. The commission wants closer contact with Italy’s financial police and is pursuing a memorandum with Italy’s National Anti-Corruption Authority, he said, and he encouraged Italian companies to invest, saying authorities were working to protect businesses from bribery and extortion. Fontana said Italy was ready to cooperate on legislation, legal assistance, exchanges of expertise and training.

Iraq said on Sept. 24 that it had recovered $13 million frozen in French banks, and on Oct. 1 that Lebanon had extradited a former Wasit Health Directorate employee sentenced in absentia to life over the embezzlement of nearly 3.8 billion dinars. The commission said in July that some countries had refused requests to return corruption proceeds or extradite suspects on legal, economic or humanitarian grounds.