ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – An Iraqi court sentenced MP Hassan al-Khafaji to two years in prison on charges of extortion, the Federal Commission of Integrity said in a statement Thursday.

The commission said that the sentence was handed out after Khafaji was convicted of “extorting an investor and demanding an amount of $500,000,” and a 40% stake in the Hawraa Baghdad residential project, using the name of an employee in his office.

The sentence came following a confession by his co-defendant, as well as “transcription records of audio recordings, witness statements, and a copy of the executed contract.”

Khafaji served as the chairman of the parliament’s investment and development committee. Iraq’s judiciary requested the lifting of his parliamentary immunity in early June over the extortion case that he was ultimately convicted of.

He was part of former Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Alliance, before leaving the coalition in late May.

He was arrested during Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s anti-corruption campaign, dubbed Operation Dawn, on June 28, along with dozens of other officials.

The integrity commission last Thursday sentenced Mohammed al-Karbouli, a member of parliament for the Sunni Azm Alliance, to two years in prison in addition to a fine after he was convicted of “soliciting a bribe in exchange for interfering in a public official matter.”

Iraq has long suffered from rampant corruption and bribery. The country ranked 140 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, despite successive Iraqi governments vowing to clamp down on the phenomenon.