Saleem’s Ordeal Calls Iraq’s Future Into Question

Two years ago, newly elected Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid told the world that “his country is now at peace, democratic, and intent on rebuilding economic life while maintaining a government that serves the whole country and region.”

Rashid said most Iraqis believe the 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein was just, even though “certain things did not work out as we hoped…. I think the myth was that once Saddam is removed, Iraq becomes heaven.”

Life in Iraq has hardly been heavenly for Kurdish engineer, foreign investor, and U.S. citizen Sara (Miran) Saleem, who is still dealing with the repercussions of a fraudulent scheme dating back to 2014 that left her held in captivity for 43 days.

Saleem has just filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court against Faiq Zidan, the president of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, and several other senior government officials under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism and Torture Victims Protection Acts. The charges include “brutal acts of extortion, kidnapping, torture, and attempted murder.”

Saleem, in an exclusive interview, explains that she was approached by Nizar Hanna Nasri, Nameer Abdo Nasri, and Ramiz Nasri (the Hanna brothers) who wanted to invest $100 million toward construction of a residential real estate complex that was to include 2,800 housing units, a 250,000 square meter mall with schools, daycare, a hospital, a fitness center, and other amenities.

At the time (April 2014), the project was 45% completed. The brothers had no cash but owned multiple properties they said they would mortgage, but the loan would have to be in her name because they had not repaid prior loans. She went to the Trade Bank of Iraq, which accepted the mortgaged properties as collateral.

Soon after, Saleem was contacted by a representative of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was running for Vice President, demanding she “donate” $10 million to his campaign. The caller said Nizar Hanna would pay $8 million. Strapped during construction, she refused to pay the $2 million, even after being warned failure to pay would cause her huge problems.

Just days after the parliamentary elections, ISIS entered Iraq while she was in the U.S. Upon her return, she found that the Hanna brothers had not spent any of the $100 million on construction materials but absconded with the money. A week later, she was kidnapped in front of 200 witnesses and the provisional council on orders from al-Malaki and his son.

In captivity, she was accused of being a CIA or Mossad agent and ordered to pay a $2 million ransom out of an empty bank account. After being abused, tortured, and moved several times, she escaped by crawling out of a third-floor window. The story of her ordeal can be found here.

Years later she learned the Hanna brothers were complicit in her kidnapping – and that their entire “business” deal was part of a larger plot to discredit her. Saleem was interviewed ninetimes by FBI officials, who assured her that those who failed to extort the $2 million were still in power and would create legal problems for her – arrest warrants, travel bans, frozen assets.

When she finally returned to Iraq, she was escorted by the Iraqi President’s head of security. On her second visit, her passport was seized, and she was told there was a warrant for her arrest because of the TBI loan. She alerted the FBI of this fabricated case and told the court that it was the Hanna brothers who were liable for the loan.

Frustrated, she filed a lawsuit against the brothers and two bills of exchange that covered the full amount of the loans. But her problems were only getting worse, all because of Faiq Zidan, whom she calls “the most dangerous man in Iraq.”

This is the same Zidan who enabled Iranian-backed militias to attack U.S. bases in Iraq and Kurdistan – the same Zidan who issued a warrant for the arrest of President Trump after the assassination of Iranian terrorist Qasem Soleimani.

Saleem, Iraq’s most successful businesswoman, says that al-Maliki, Zidan, and the Hanna brothers had conspired to seize control of her $1.5 billion in assets, but her 15-member legal team held off these attacks and worked to obtain convictions of the Hanna brothers, who were sentenced to three years in prison for fraud.

But that was hardly the end of the story.

Zidan, whose wealth has come partly (she states) from the selling of pardons, is the head of a snaky collective of corrupt Iraqi judges who work with officials to use the legal system to extort millions, much of which ends up with Iran-backed militias. She has dealt face-to-face on multiple occasions with Zidan, even threatening to take her case to an international court.

But money talks, and the Trade Bank of Iraq betrayed her trust, as did other Iraqi officials. The Hanna brothers were released early from prison so their case could be retried in a rigged process intended to acquit them of all wrongdoing – and place all blame back on her. It only cost $15 million in bribes.

Iraqi journalists fear arrest if they report on judicial corruption. Zidan only fears U.S. sanctions and finds ways to pretend to acquiesce when confronted. He recently seized control of Iraq’s parallel federal court system to enable his minions to sell public pardons for a published list of over 70 kinds of crimes.

Moreover, Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani, a longtime business partner of the Hanna brothers, recently issued a civil judgment against Saleem demanding she repay the bank loan despite documented evidence that the Hanna brothers are liable.

It is now evident that Barzani, Zidan, and others have colluded to defraud Saleem – and to extort money from her and many other Iraqis to fund acts of terror – as well as for personal gain.

Newly named U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz last summer called the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq and Judge Zidan “tools of Iranian influence” in Iraq and at the center of Iran’s plot to turn Iraq into a client state.

Reinforcing Waltz’s view, four U.S.-designated terrorist groups quickly came to Zidan’s defense, calling any attempt to “demean” Zidan “a blatant transgression on Iraqi sovereignty.” They also claimed that Waltz’s criticism was on behalf of the Kurds (Saleem, after all, is Kurdish), but that rings hollow given Barzani’s recent role in her persecution.

James Durso last month predicted that Iraq is in for a rough 2025 even as Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani signed economic agreements and advocated for a stronger Iraq-U.S. partnership to move beyond security to include energy, education, and investment.

Durso claimed the Trump Administration’s punitive measures would harm Iraq’s stability, increase tensions, and depress economic activity. But he admits that U.S. officials see political reform and a reduction of Iranian influence as essential to true Iraqi independence.

Iraqis are preparing for parliamentary elections again this year. Saleem’s saga reveals that corruption, Iranian influence, and judicial arrogance are major obstacles to a freer, safer Iraq. Perhaps a final, appropriate resolution of her 11-year nightmare can be a catalyst to the peace that President Rashid wants dearly to be his nation’s reality.

Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.