Iraqi panel finds former PM Maliki responsible for fall of Mosul to IS

An Iraqi parliamentary panel has held former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki and dozens of military leaders directly responsible for the fall of the country’s second city to Islamic State. It demanded 35 senior figures to face court martial over the fall of Mosul in June last year. The indictment of Maliki, who remains a powerful figure in Iraq’s complex political landscape, and other senior officials comes a week after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi launched a sweeping campaign to combat corruption and mismanagement that he argued had made the country nearly impossible to govern. The committee also named former Mosul Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, former acting defence minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi, former army chief Gen Babakir Zebari and Lt Gen Mahdi al-Gharrawi, former operational commander of Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.

No one is above the law and accountability to the people. The judiciary will punish perpetrators and delinquents.

Parliament Speaker Saleem al-Jabouri

There has been no official accounting of how Mosul was lost, and who gave the order to abandon the fight. The fall of the city - Iraq’s second-largest - was a turning point in Islamic State’s seizure of large swathes of the country’s north and west in a sweep across the Syrian border last year. Maliki has accused unnamed countries, commanders and rival politicians of plotting the fall of Mosul. The parliamentary report was approved by 16 of the panel’s 24 members, lawmaker Muhsin Sadoun said. Panel member Mohammed al-Karabouli said parliament would vote on the report’s findings on Monday and then refer it to Abadi, the prosecutor general and the integrity commission.

Politics Maliki