Anti-corruption worker shot dead in Baghdad

May 13, 2009, 11:01 GMT

Baghdad- An employee working for the Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) was killed Wednesday in an armed attack in Baghdad, a police source said.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on an employee working for the CPI while heading to his work in al-Shaab neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad, 'killing him instantly,' the source told Voices Of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

The CPI is an anti-corruption independent body within the government of Iraq tasked with preventing and investigating corruption at all levels of the Iraqi government nationwide.

The incident comes days after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced that his government is launching a campaign against corruption.

In 2008 the international watchdog Transparency International rated Iraq as the third most corrupt country in the world after Somalia and Myanmar.

Members of the CPI have repeatedly said that they are subject to political pressure and anonymous death threats.

Judge Radhi Hamza resigned in September 2007 as the first anti-corruption Commissioner citing political pressure from the government of al-Maliki and anonymous death threats.

On Tuesday the Iraqi trade minister Abdul falah al-Sudani said that more than 176 administrative and financial corruption cases were admitted to the judiciary, VOI reported.

'The trade ministry formed a higher committee to look into corruption cases, and to check any tip-offs in this regard,' al-Sudani said in a press release.

'A number of employees were dismissed from their positions due to corruption,' he said.

Separately, five people were wounded Wednesday in a car bomb explosion in eastern Mosul, a police source told VOI.

The booby-trapped car went off on Wednesday in al-Karama neighborhood in eastern Mosul, targeting an Iraqi army vehicle patrol, the source said.

Mosul, the capital of Ninewa, lies some 400 km north of Baghdad.