The Federal Integrity Commission announced the recovery of two fugitive convicts from the Sultanate of Oman, after they were arrested in the Sultanate's territory last February.

The recovery department of the Commission stated that Iraq was able to recover two convicts who were fugitives, the former Director General of Urban Planning in the Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works, and the former Director General of the Anbar Agriculture Department, after their arrest in the territory of the Sultanate of Oman, based on the international arrest warrants and recovery files organized by the department in cooperation with the competent courts, according to the research radio issued by the Council of Arab Interior Ministers.

The department added that a team from the Recovery Department, accompanied by a security detachment from the Arab and International Police Directorate at the Ministry of Interior (Interpol), received the convicts in exploitation of the position, intentional damage to state funds and illegal appropriation of them in the capital, Muscat. They arrived this morning at Baghdad International Airport, in order to hand them over to the judicial authorities to receive their just punishment.

The department added that the two convicts had previously been convicted by the Iraqi judicial authorities of decisions issued in absentia by the Central Anti-Corruption and Anbar Criminal Courts, based on the provisions of Articles (316 and 340) of the Penal Code.

The department appreciated the role of the competent authorities in the Sultanate of Oman in cooperation and coordination with the Iraqi authorities in arresting and handing over the convicts, stressing that the commission is determined to clamping down on the corrupt fugitives, and to coordinate with the countries in which they reside in order not to become safe havens for wanted fugitives.

It is worth noting that the arrest of the convicts in the territory of the Sultanate of Oman took place according to the research broadcast that was issued against them. According to the international arrest warrant with the Iraqi judicial authorities, which was requested and organized by the Recovery Department, as the recovery files were organized very quickly, and this led to the success of their recovery process.

The Authority had announced on the twenty-third of last February an agreement in principle between the Chairman of the Authority, Judge (Haider Hanoun) and Sheikh (Ghosn bin Hilal Al-Alawi), the head of the Financial and Administrative Control Authority in the Sultanate of Oman, to conclude a memorandum of understanding in the field of combating corruption and exchanging information and investigations on the defendants wanted by the courts, and corruption funds smuggled abroad in order to recover them.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency