Iraqi court acquits former head of Kirkuk Council Rebwar Talabani
Rebwar Talabani, the former head of Kirkuk Provincial Council, Iraq, 2019. Photo: SM
KIRKUK,— Iraq’s federal court acquitted the former head of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, Rebwar Talabani, reversing a six-month prison sentence issued against him earlier in December, Talabani announced on Sunday.
Talabani said on Monday that corruption charges against him have been dropped by a federal court and that he is ready to return to Kirkuk once the situation has been normalized.
A court in Kirkuk on December 26, 2018 issued a six-month prison sentence against Talabani, who was charged in absentia for “illegally” spending public funds.
During a news conference, Talabani said that the Supreme Judicial Council had found him not guilty on all charges on May 28 following an investigation by the Rasafa Appeals Court.
The court’s ruling stated that Talabani had spent 76 million Iraqi dinars ($63,567) “outside of [the] legal framework” of the KPC and issued an arrest warrant for the Kurdish official.
“Erbil and Baghdad are in talks to resolve the situation in Kirkuk province. I will return to Kirkuk upon the normalization of the situation,” Talabani said.
“I have never said I would not return [to Kirkuk ],” he added.
However, Talabani’s brother, Bakhtiyar, announced that the federal court “on Sunday acquitted Talabani of all charges laid against him by Rakan al-Jabouri [acting governor], Rash Sidiq [acting KPC head], and his group.”
On his Facebook account, Bakhtiyar claimed the court had “completely closed the case, and from today on, he [Talabani] could resume his work as the head of KPC, as well as ask for financial and moral compensation.”
Rebwar Talabani has been the head of Kirkuk Provincial Council since 2014. He is a member of the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU). He has often been mistaken as being a PUK member due to his surname, Talabani.
Following the attack and military takeover of Kirkuk by Iraqi forces and Shia militias on Oct. 16, 2017, Talabani, along with half of the Kirkuk Provincial Council members, fled to Iraqi Kurdistan region. Since then, the body has repeatedly failed to convene due to lack of quorum.
Since October 2017, several complaints have been issued against Talabani for raising the Kurdistan national flag in Kirkuk alongside the Iraqi one, as well as agreeing to hold the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum in the disputed province, which followed the KPC’s agreement by majority vote.
The oil-rich and ethnically diverse Kirkuk remains a territory disputed between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal government of Iraq, a long-standing issue between the two governments.
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