The former head of Kirkuk municipality and two of his aides were found guilty by Kirkuk criminal court and they were penalized for one year prison over the case of auction for ten plots of land while the aides face unimplemented penalty for their clean profile, sources told KirkukNow.
Jamal Shukur, former head of Kirkuk municipality, was also a member of the Iraqi parliament and a leader of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK.
Kirkuk criminal court on April 19 has issued its verdict in the case of Jamal Shukur, the former head of Kirkuk municipality and two of his aides.
The first part of the court verdict, KirkukNow preserves a copy of it, states “court has found them guilty and decided to imprison them for one year per article 340 of Iraqi criminal code.”
The second part of the court ruling indicates the court takes into consideration the “circumstances of the two employees as they are women and have no criminal record, a reference they won’t commit a deliberate crime, the court has decided to suspend their prison penalty for three years.”
“They have to fill in a pledge to behave well and each to deposit 200,000 Dinars at insurance box refundable after three years in case they commit no offense or crime on purpose, hereafter the court ordered suspension of their imprisonment penalty for three years.”
The defendant, directorate of Kirkuk municipalities, has the right to ask for compensation via a civil court once the court verdict is final and absolute.
A well-informed source aware of the court case, told KirkukNow, following the court verdict, “Shukur was sent to prison.”
Ahead of 2003, Kirkuk municipality has sold 10 plots of land to people allegedly close to the Baath party led by Saddam Hussein which was ousted in April 2003. Following 2003, Kirkuk municipality has sold the plots again when Shukur was director at a different price.
“All the case is unfair and will file for appeal with my lawyer and I have committed no any crime and I don’t know why I was targeted,” Shukur told KirkukNow over the phone.
“First of all, I have refused to sign the orders by the ministry of municipality has forced me to though the procedures were not illegal and I will publish the proofs soon,” he added.
Article 340 of the Iraqi penal code stipulates not less than seven years in prison for a civil servant deliberately causes damage to the public fortune and interest or the party he works for.
KirkukNow has come to know that no appeal has been filed up today yet there are serious efforts to find a legal escape so that Shukur escapes imprisonment alike his aides.
Located 238 kilometers north of Baghdad, the oil-rich city of Kirkuk is an ethnically mixed province for 1.7 million Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, Muslims, Christians and Kaka'is. It has long been at the center of disputes between Baghdad and the Erbil.
Kirkuk was under the control of the Kurdish parties especially the PUK until the Iraqi forces declared victory over ISIS in 2017 and ousted Kurdish forces in Kirkuk and the disputed territories following a referendum for independence by the Kurds in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and Kirkuk in September 2017.
Currently, the Iraqi army, federal and provincial police, Special Forces along with Shiite paramilitary of Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, undertake the security of Kirkuk province and the disputed territories.
