Iraqi anti-corruption police officer assassinated in south

Mohammed Al Shemussi is the second investigating official to be killed in Maysan province within a month

Iraqi soldiers patrol in Baghdad. Government attempts to curb corruption have met with repeated pushback. Reuters

An Iraqi anti-corruption police officer was shot dead outside his home on Friday, in the second such murder in the country's south in the past month.

"Armed assailants this morning shot dead Mohammed Al Shemussi, a captain in the anti-corruption section, in front of his home," said Majed Hamid, a police captain in Amara, the capital of south-eastern Maysan province.

The perpetrators "fled in a taxi", he told AFP.

Al Shemussi was in charge of applying the mandates of the integrity commission, the federal government's anti-corruption body.

Corruption in Iraq has deprived the public purse of about $450 billion of revenues since 2003, according to a 2019 parliamentary report.

In May, another Iraqi police officer specialising in corruption issues was killed in Maysan, which borders Iran.

He was killed "the day after a police search at the homes of corruption suspects", a police source told AFP.

The home of the Maysan tax authority's chief was among those searched, the source said.

Such positions are routinely allocated on the basis of political allegiance in Iraq.

The two killings are part of a wave of attacks against anti-corruption personnel in the rural province, including one against a judge, the source added.

Bombs are sometimes used in these attacks.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi last year announced a crackdown on corruption at border crossings.

Some border officials are suspected of accepting bribes to allow goods in without paying full import duties.