Lebanon to extradite British passport-holding ex-Minister to Baghdad

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi Integrity Commission on Thursday announced the issuance of a Lebanese decree handing over the former Iraqi Minister of Trade, Abdul Falah al-Sudani, to Iraqi authorities.

“The Lebanese Presidency today issued decree NO. (2097) on Dec. 27, 2017, announcing the extradition of the convicted Abdul-Falah al-Sudani, the former Minister of Trade, to the judicial authorities in the Republic of Iraq,” the commission statement reads.

The statement mentions that both Iraq and Lebanon have agreed on the extradition of the wanted man.  

It also stated that al-Sudani was apprehended by Lebanese security at Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport in cooperation with Interpol.

A court has compelled the former Iraqi official based on a guilty verdict related to the offenses of “deliberate damage, breaches of duties and intentional functions, damage to public funds, and money laundering,” according to the Commission.

Al-Sudani, who holds British citizenship, was a member of the Islamic Dawa Party led by former Prime Minister and current Vice-President of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki.

He was born in Iraq’s Basra Province in 1947 and went into exile in Britain in the late 1970s. He received a doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Wales in 1981. He fled Iraq in 2009 after an investigation was launched against him. 

Editing by Nadia Riva