Iraqi Kurdistan ex-Finance Minister Rebaz Mohammed Hamlan, 2019. Photo: Hamlan’s fb
HEWLÊR/SLEMANI, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) exchanged tit-for-tat statements on Friday accusing each other of wrongdoing after the Erbil Asayish arrested a man who they accused of spying on a former Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) finance minister.
The exchange exposed the depth to which the security apparatus in Iraqi Kurdistan Region is tied in with the two ruling parties and their willingness to use party-affiliated units to bend the rule of law. Moreover, it showed yet again that the underlying animosity between the KDP and the PUK remains as potent as ever.
The incident became public after the KDP-controlled Asayish arrested a man on Thursday that they accused of spying on former minister Rebaz Mohammed Hamlan on behalf “foreign party.” Afterward, they alleged that he had ties to the Zanyari agency, which is the intelligence agency of the PUK and is led by recently-elected PUK co-president Lahur Sheikh Jangi Talabani.
The man’s family denied on Thursday night that he was involved in spying that he “has never betrayed his nation and country. He has not never seen Sheikh Lahur or the Zanyari. In this country, people can easily be accused of being a spy and a terrorist.”
Lahur Sheikh Jangi Talabani, the co-leader of PUK party and the head of Iraqi Kurdistan Intelligence Agency in the areas controlled by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK, Sulaimani, Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo: Reuters
They also claimed that he had been kept in custody for the last nine months without the ability to communicate with his family and that he had been tortured during that time.
On Friday, the Zanyari said in a statement that it had no knowledge of the man’s activities in any way and rejected the Erbil Asayish’s attempt to link him to them.
“The Erbil Asayish is good at these sorts of things. Every time a crisis appears they try to distract people using scenarios to make them forget the crisis of the government,” the statement said.
In response, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said that “Lahur Jangi, under the name of the Zanyari Agency, confused and far from any reality, published a statement accusing the government and the prime minister using baseless claims.”
“We think that Lahur Jangi should take legal measures. It would be better for us, so that we can present our evidence in from of the court,” he added.
Barzani is a senior official in the KDP and the former chancellor of the Kurdistan Region’s Security Council.
Iraqi Kurdistan is not unified region, it is divided politically and geographically between the KDP led by Massoud Barzani and PUK led by the Talabani’s clan.
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