Kirkuk's Integrity Court issued an arrest warrant June 16 for Rakan Saeed al-Jabouri, the acting governor of Kirkuk, on charges of corruption, including wasting 950 million Iraqi dinars in public funds allocated for reconstruction in areas retaken from Islamic State (IS) control.
The multiethnic and oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 145 miles north of Baghdad, is an area disputed between the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution requires the final status of Kirkuk and other areas in dispute between the two governments to be resolved in a referendum to determine whether they will remain part of federal Iraq or the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region.