Two arrested in Iraq’s Tikrit over land-allocation case

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq's Federal Commission of Integrity on Tuesday arrested the head of the property department at Tikrit Municipality over an alleged land-allocation scheme, seizing 94 municipal property deeds from his home.

The commission said the official worked with employees and transaction brokers to buy land-allocation receipts from citizens for small sums, insert them into allocation lists, sell the plots, and split the proceeds. Investigators also found cash in Iraqi dinars and US dollars, gold jewelry, small arms, a late-model vehicle, and citizen transaction receipts at his home.

A second property department employee was arrested after investigators found land-allocation files, ownership-transfer records, and other municipal documents at his home.

On September 7, the Integrity Commission announced arrests in Nasiriyah over alleged manipulation involving 104 high-value properties. In August, a separate Saladin investigation uncovered records linked to about 95 properties involving a detained deputy director of the Real Estate Registration Directorate.

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