Shafaq News- Dhi Qar

A court in Nasiriyah on Sunday sentenced five municipality employees to two years' rigorous imprisonment for deliberately breaching their official duties by manipulating property records, according to a security source and a copy of the ruling obtained by Shafaq News.

The Nasiriyah Misdemeanor Court for Integrity Cases found that the five had entered property data into beneficiaries' accounts before allocation records arrived from the provincial government and were archived, despite the absence of supporting transactions for the beneficiaries, in order to benefit individuals at the state's expense.

The court convicted them under Article 331 of Iraq's Penal Code, which covers public officials who intentionally violate the duties of their office, along with provisions on complicity.

In August, a Nasiriyah court issued arrest warrants for eight municipality employees, including a former director, and several staff and middlemen were arrested with forged seals and land documents. Investigators also found nearly 600 abandoned land files.