ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s Federal Integrity Commission announced on Wednesday that it had sentenced former Diyala Governor Abdulnasir al-Muntasirbillah over granting unlawful car loans worth over four billion Iraqi dinars.

"The Baquba Misdemeanor Court, which specializes in integrity cases, issued a ruling in absentia to impose a severe prison sentence of two years against the convicted former governor of Diyala (Abdulnasir al-Muntasirbillah),” said the commission in a statement.

According to the statement, car loans were handed out under Muntasirbillah’s governorship, “totaling 287 transactions, with a value of up to (4,371,137,250) dinars, by the Diyala Province Diwan and distributed by the governor's guards, despite the lack of a signature from the province's Diwan official.

“Furthermore, there was distortion, erasure, and inking in the contract forms, the absence of the guarantor's fingerprint, and the borrowers' failure to pay the installments for a period of two years," the statement noted.

Iraq ranks 140 out of 180 when it comes to countries’ corruption rates, according to the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International.

The former Diyala governor’s sentence marks the second case of corruption within two days, after a traffic police officer being sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday.

Footage went viral across social media platforms of the patrol officer threatening a driver with a 50,000 dinar [around 35 dollars] fine for a traffic violation, before accepting a bribe of 5,000 dinars [around 3.5 dollars] and letting the vehicle go free.

The government of Iraqi Prime Mister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani has placed anti-corruption measures at the forefront of its policy objectives, with the Commission of Integrity receiving expanded oversight to curb long-standing issues of financial misconduct in the country’s offices.

At an anti-corruption conference organized by the Federal Board of Supreme Audit in February, Sudani said: “Corruption has become like a mutating virus, adapting itself to the measures taken by audit authorities.”