BAGHDAD. The flagship anti-corruption campaign led by U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi used incommunicado detention, torture and sexual violence to extract confessions from high-level Iraqi officials and businessmen, according to a nine-month investigation by The Washington.
Kadhimi, who left office in October, came to power in 2020 after his predecessor was overthrown by massive anti-corruption demonstrations. His government's high-profile campaign against bribery in one of the world's most corrupt countries has gained widespread international support.
Central to this effort was a series of highly publicized night raids in late 2020 on the homes of public figures accused of corruption, led by the Standing Committee to Investigate Corruption and Serious Crimes, better known as the Committee of 29. Lieutenant General Ahmed Taha Hashim, or Abu Raghif, who became known in Iraq as "the night visitor," was the architect of the raids.
But what was happening to people behind closed doors was far more grim: a return to the old ugly security tactics that Kadhimi had vowed to eradicate. In more than two dozen interviews, including five people detained by the committee, nine family members whose relatives were imprisoned, and 11 Iraqi and Western officials who observed the committee, a picture emerges of a process marked by insults and humiliation, focused more on getting signatures on pre-written confessions than on prosecuting corrupt acts.
Those we interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues or, in the case of detainees and their families, to protect their safety.
"It was all kinds of torture," recalls one former detainee. "Electricity, suffocation with plastic bags, hanging from the ceiling by the arms. They stripped us naked and grabbed the body parts underneath."
In at least one case, former high-ranking official Qassim Hamoud Mansour died in hospital after being arrested by a committee. Photographs provided to The Post by his family show that several teeth were knocked out and his forehead showed signs of blunt trauma.
Allegations that the process was riddled with abuse have been a polychinelike secret among diplomats in Baghdad in the past year. But the international community has done little to investigate the allegations, and the prime minister's office downplayed the accusations, according to officials with knowledge of the matter. Although a parliamentary committee first uncovered allegations of torture in 2021, and the Iraqi media has occasionally raised the issue, this is the most comprehensive attempt to investigate the allegations and document the extent of the abuse.
Iraq has lost more than $320 billion to corruption since 2003, according to estimates by the country's parliamentary transparency commission, after the U.S.-led invasion created a political system that is maintained through consensus among parties that divide state resources to fund patronage networks and enrich. their members. Most of the new prime ministers have announced anti-corruption initiatives, but these have been used more often to discredit political rivals than to actually address the problem.
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Officials arrested by the Committee of 29 were often seen as easy targets, with no powerful allies to protect them when there was a knock on the door. Some of the detainees were pursued for years on corruption charges, but the committee's secrecy and the opaqueness of the judicial process make it impossible to know how many of the arrests were legitimate. Researchers say some were politically motivated and targeted individuals with ties to groups that threatened the political fortunes of a key party
