ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s Integrity Commission on Saturday said a draft for an international memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been prepared for extraditing suspects of corruption and the retrieval of smuggled funds.

Under the directive of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, Baghdad has intensified efforts to curb corruption in the country.

The government launched a large-scale anti-graft campaign in late June, when security forces entered Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and arrested scores of senior officials and lawmakers over alleged corruption and theft of public resources.

Abbas Mutab, head of the commission's recovery department, told state media that some countries do not cooperate with Iraq in extraditing wanted individuals or retrieving funds.

“The department has prepared a draft for signing memoranda of understanding with those countries to recover the funds and the accused, and we are following up with the countries and the changes, but some countries' internal laws do not allow for taking a specific action requested by Iraq,” Mutab said.

One of the main challenges Iraq faces in executing arrest warrants for suspects abroad in different cases is that some countries require knowing the type of punishment the person may receive and guarantees that they will not be sentenced to death. 

“There are many countries that are not cooperating for various purposes, including economic and humanitarian reasons, and sometimes the corrupt person is a refugee in those countries, so there is difficulty in extradition,” Mutab added.

In November, the commission signed a deal with global intelligence and security consultancy, The Soufan Group, which includes international cooperation, training and capacity building, knowledge transfer, financial investigations, and providing technical and legal support in tracking and extraditing wanted individuals and recovering smuggled assets.

The Soufan Group is a New York-based firm founded by former FBI agent Ali Soufan. It specializes in investigations, threat assessment, and strategic security advising, according to its website.