BAGHDAD, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday that arrest warrants were issued for 11 ministers and ministerial-level officials suspected of corruption.
A total of 1,367 cases of corruption have been referred to the integrity courts, with 4,117 cases not resolved yet in various government institutions, Mahdi told a press conference after the weekly cabinet meeting.
"The Anti-Corruption Council has strengthened its measures to fight corruption and to pursue the corrupt. We will mention the names of the accused corrupt people if the investigations prove their corruption," he said.
The Iraqi prime minister's comments came a day after Faiq Zaidan, head of the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council, called on the Iraqi parliament to lift the immunity of lawmakers who are suspected of corruption when they held executive positions before becoming a parliament member.
Zaidan also appealed to the ministries and government offices to swiftly complete the administrative investigations required for prosecution of corrupt officials.
Corruption is one of Iraq's biggest problems that caused extreme poverty among the people of the oil-rich country.
Many accuse the influential political parties of being behind the wide-spread corruption, which led to high unemployment and failure in rehabilitation of Iraq's electricity, water and other basic services.
