Former Iraqi lawmaker sentenced to 5 years for election tampering in 2018: Integrity Commission

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq’s Integrity Commission on Tuesday said a five-year prison sentence had been handed to a former lawmaker who attempted to sell a parliamentary seat in the previous government.

The Integrity Commission said in a statement that Baghdad’s Karkh Investigation Court, which deals with corruption cases, sentenced former lawmaker Shadha al-Abousy to five years in prison after a voice recording circulated on social media of the former MP contained her attempts “to sell a seat at the parliament for an amount of money.” 

In the viral voice recording, Abousy can be heard speaking with Wizah Saded, the secretary-general of the Al-Eza national movement. Saded asks Abousy to mediate between a British company to assure him a seat in the May 2018 parliamentary elections in Iraq for USD 250,000.

The former parliamentarian allegedly presented herself as a representative of the British political consulting firm “Cambridge Analytica” and attempted to collect USD 350,000 for an additional 5,000 votes in the election.

In 2018, the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission pressed charges of fraud and attempts of manipulation in the election results against both Abousy and Saded after the voice clip was published on social media.

The 2018 Iraqi parliamentary election was marred with controversy, especially regarding allegations against its legitimacy and the tampering of votes to certain political parties.     

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany