ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - A Baghdad court on Monday sentenced an official from Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s office and one of his accomplices to four years in prison due to their involvement in a wiretapping network case.

Mohammed Juhi, assistant director of the administrative department at Sudani’s office, and co-defendant Ali Mutair were sentenced by the Karkh Criminal Court, according to lawyer Ali Kamil Rasul.

The accused were sentenced in accordance with Article 430 of the Iraqi Penal Code, and have several other lawsuits lined up against them in the coming weeks and months, according to Iraq MP Mustafa Sanad.

Article 430 stipulates an imprisonment period not exceeding seven years to anyone found guilty of threatening another with “the commission of a felony against his person or property or against the person or property of others or with the imputation to him of certain dishonorable matters.”

Sanad explained that the reason Article 430 was adopted is due to the lack of an article specific to eavesdropping and wiretapping in the Iraqi Penal Code.

In August, Sanad said that a network functioning inside the government building where the prime minister’s office is located were arrested for “impersonating and eavesdropping on the phones of Iraqi politicians and MPs.”

The case became known as the Mohammed Juhi Network. Mutair was reportedly one of the prominent members of the group.

According to Sanad, “the network was practicing several unclean acts, including wiretapping the phones of a number of MPs and politicians.” 

A senior official from Sudani’s office previously told The New Region that the network was formed during the government of former Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.