The Integrity Commission revealed today, Wednesday, that it has apprehended five suspects in the Mosul Municipality and Nineveh Water Departments for violating their job duties and soliciting bribes in exchange for carrying out their assigned tasks.

The Commission's statement indicated that a team from the Investigation Directorate in Nineveh was able to apprehend the Director of the Mosul Municipality and officials from the Violations Department for allowing encroachments on municipal lands and failing to take legal action against them.

It explained that the team managed to catch the suspects after moving to the Al-Samha neighborhood in Mosul and conducting investigations to verify the accuracy of the information. This involved municipal employees coordinating with certain contractors to provide land plot numbers belonging to the municipality for unauthorized construction and sale to citizens in exchange for financial sums. The operation also led to the apprehension of one of the encroachers on the land.

Additionally, the statement mentioned that in a separate operation, based on a complaint from a citizen, the team set up a precise sting operation to catch an employee working in the Nineveh Water Directorate. He was caught in the act with a bribe amounting to 1,250,000 Iraqi dinars in his possession, in exchange for collecting an outstanding water fee of 6,644,000 dinars for a car wash and lubrication garage. The suspect manipulated the fee amount to make it 644,000 dinars, and a receipt issued by the Nineveh Water Directorate was also seized.

It noted that formal reports were prepared for both operations, and they, along with the suspects and seized items, were presented to the relevant Nineveh court judge responsible for integrity cases. The judge decided to detain the suspects in the first case under Article 331 of the Iraqi Penal Code, while the suspect in the second operation was detained according to Decision No. 160 of 1983.