The Interpol arrested on Tuesday former Baghdad mayor Naeem Abaob on the Syrian-Lebanese border on charges of corruption and embezzlement while in office between 2013 and 2015.
Interpol acted after an arrest warrant was issued by the Iraqi authorities to apprehend Abaob similar to the arrest of Kirkuk's former governor, Najm Eddine Karim, on similar charges.
Abdel Falah al-Sudani, a former trade minister, has also been arrested and sentenced to 21 years in prison after being found guilty of corruption weeks after Interpol handed him over to Iraqi authorities.
Reports said Abaob was arrested on the border while traveling from Lebanon to Syria to visit religious sites.
In 2015, then Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi sacked Abaob and named Dr. Zekra Alwach as Baghdad mayor.
Abaob was regularly accused on social media and by Baghdad residents of being incompetent. He made headlines in March 2014 when he described his city, beset by brutal sectarian violence and rife with corruption, as "more beautiful than New York and Dubai.”
On Wednesday, the repatriation department at the Iraqi Commission of Integrity said it was working on repatriating the accused fugitive from Syria.
“We are working on completing Abaob’s file and to hand it to the Iraqi embassy in Damascus,” it said in a statement.
Iraqi activists hinted on social media that Lebanon has turned into a “trap” for Iraqis accused of corruption and of squandering public funds.
In January 2019, an Iraqi court sentenced Abaob in absentia to seven years in prison for squandering $12 million when inking a contract with two companies, one local and another Egyptian, to develop a park in the capital.
