Prisoners in Kurdistan jails can avoid re-arrest upon release, return to Iraq: KRG official

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Sunni Arabs who served prison time in the Kurdistan Region for connections to the Islamic State (IS) can avoid a re-arrest in areas controlled by Baghdad by presenting documents relevant to their case to Iraqi authorities, a Kurdish official said on Sunday.

The statement came from Dindar Zebari, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Coordinator for International Advocacy, in response to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the same day, stating that “the lack of coordination between Iraq’s two separate judicial systems has led to a risk of repeated prosecutions for the same crime.”

“After serving their sentences and [subsequent] release in the Kurdistan Region,” anyone “arrested or sentenced on terror charges” can “present a copy of their court ruling” to avoid a re-arrest when returning home under Baghdad jurisdiction, Zebari told Kurdistan 24 on Sunday.

The case files – in which extensive details on the defenders are laid out – of arrestees in the Kurdistan Region can be retrieved through a lawyer, he explained.

Individuals, who were released “while under investigation or yet to be tried, can ask for their arrest warrant [document] from the [relevant] authorities or departments” in the Kurdistan Region.

These documents can later be presented to Iraqi authorities for examination.

Though there used to be greater coordination between the Iraqi government and the KRG, these systems broke down after Iraq’s hostile reaction to the Kurdistan Region’s September 2017 independence referendum.

Zebari reaffirmed that Iraq’s High Judicial Council highlighted that it had ordered the formation of a committee in November to improve coordination between the two judicial authorities.

However, as HRW has found, “the committee has yet to start functioning.”

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany