Alwaght- An Iraqi court issued an arrest warrant for the Minister of Natural Resources of the country’s Kurdistan region, Ashti Hawrami.
Sherko Jawdat, the head of natural resources committee in the Kurdistan region parliament who was in a long battle with the minister over corruption allegations, leaked the news to the local media.
Jawdat said that he raised the issue with the court after obtaining evidence and documents pointing to misuse of power and corruption
The Kurdistan MPs accuse the minister and his relatives, particularly his former wife Charkhan Rafiq, of corruption where they bought oil from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and sold it on the black market for monthly revenue of nearly $10 million.
Rafiq denies the allegations first surfaced in May 2016. Reports said the region’s president Massoud Barzani issued a detention order for Rafiq at that time.
"The court issued an arrest warrant for Ashti Hawrami and a number of other officials, saying they need to appear before court,” Jawdat said.
"A fake plant named Zipo is operating by Ashti Hawrami’s approval and specialist committees in the Ministry of Natural Resources,” he added.
According to Jawdat, the Ministry of Trade and Industry confirmed that no Zipo plant exists in the region.
