The Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda, the Catholic Catholic Archbishop, was mentioned in a federal law in the United States, which was submitted by a double Iraqi-American woman for claims about his personal, political and business relationships with the essentially of Iraqi mafia.
Archbishop Warda has not only been in his Chaldean Catholic community for years, but also for Iraqi Christians in general, especially after the violent persecution and mass shift, which ISIS unleashed in 2014.
In the middle of the ISIS-induced mass shift and the continuing efforts to rebuild after the liberation of the Ninive level in 2017, Warda gained a reputation as an enthusiastic entrepreneur and one of the strongest defenders of one of the most persecuted Christian minorities in the world.
This reputation also gained strong relationships in Wasshinton and built a strong relationship with the Republican Congressman Chris Smith of the United States, which in December 2016 attended camp for the displaced persons in Erbil and later cited a law to support the besieged Christian minority of Iraq.
When US President Donald Trump signed the law on the emergency and accountability obligation of Iraq and Syria in 2018, Warda was in the room, and Trump apparently gave him the pen with which he personally signed the bill that had assigned around 6.8 million US dollar funds in Warda's hands.
Followers would say that there may only be a few people who have done as much as Warda for Iraqi Christians. However, he is now looking forward to allegations of terrorism and bribery in connection with his connection with the Hanna family.
In particular, his connections to the brothers Nizar, Nameer and Ramez Hanna Abdo Nasri are under the microscope, which are generally seen as Iraqi Mobsters because they have accumulated their wealth.
Warda was expressly submitted in a federal action at the United States district court for the eastern district of Virginia, together with other judicial and political actors from real estate developer Sara Saleem, who accused Warda of entering an ongoing criminal proceedings against the Hanna brothers in the IRAQ.
Saleem accused Hanna of helping in her kidnapping and enthusiastic, and said that she had cheated on millions of dollars and half of her company. She presented documentation for some of her claims that core saw.
Warda said in an explanation at the beginning of this year that he “denies and categorically reject these wrong and defaming allegations and reject them and will vigorously contest them in the corresponding forums”.
Exhibited by the project for organized crime and corruption reporting (OCCRP) in a June 2022 reportThe Hanna brothers, especially Nizar, are real estate tycoons, the shopping centers, residential complexes and high-rise buildings in Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan.
The family began their financial increase in the nineties, when Iraq was crippled by international sanctions and most fundamental goods were banned by the import, which opened the door to a wide smuggling network to move products in and out of Iraq.
Cigarettes were the most profitable goods, and according to the OCCRP monopolized the Hanna's in the late 1980s the relationships between political elites and monopolized the smuggling of Black Market tobacco, which built up an operation, which allegedly with organized criminal, corrupt politicians and local militia and local militia has come, built up.
Although the brothers have moved away from cigarettes since then, the infrastructure they developed in the 1990s and 2000s is still evidence, where OcCrp reports that there are six illegal cigarette factories in Iraq, three of which are connected to Hannas.
Today, for the most part, thanks to their role in the black market cigarette trade, the Hannas are sitting at the apex of a finan empire, which has now been expanded into pharmaceuticals, alcohol imports and swance real estate developments.
In 2014, the Hanna Brothers concluded a contract with Saleem, a double US Iqi citizen who is now based in Virginia and whose Iraqi company Al-Saqr al-Jarih, and regularly honored the most important construction contracts in Iraq.
As part of their agreement from 2014 with Nizar, Nameer and Ramez Hanna, the core I saw that Saleem financed the transfer of 100 million US dollars from the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) to finance the construction project in Basra, a joint venture in which Hanna and Saleem's money was to be repaid, 50 percent of their company's shares to the brothers with the promise that the Safer -Project project has completed would be through its safe project Submit your own shares and expand the Safer -Project with its own means.
Shortly after the signing of the business and the preservation of the loan of 100 million US dollars, Saleem claimed that she began to receive threats from Iraqi government officials who demanded money to donate money to support certain people. When she refused, she said that she was threatened with “great difficulties” and physical damage.
In September of this year, Saleem said that she was kidnapped by militants who surrounded her vehicle, beat her and detained her in a house in Baghdad to know that he wanted to know access to the $ 100 million that she had received from TBI. Saleem said she was captured for three months before escaping.
Since then she has followed legal steps against Hannas and in a decision in July 2023 core After the brothers were seen, the brothers were sentenced to three years in prison after the ALKHARK Baghdad Court of Appeal found them guilty of cheating both TBI and Saleem of $ 100 million.
However, an Iraqi court ordered a repetition of the case in November 2024, and the date was set for December 8, 2024. The Hannas were then released for a deposit of 33,000 US dollars and then flew to Lebanon and from there to London.
Saleem is currently waiting for a decision on an appeal by the Supreme Justice Council of Iraq. Hannas is expected to be acquitted. Saleem and their legal team accuse Iraqi corruption courts and the “attitude” of the process.
Saleem has found Warda and other Christian leaders in Iraq to the guilt, including the Syrian Catholic Patriarch of Antiochia and the entire East Ignatius Joseph III Yonan; Mar Georges III Younan, Patriarch of the Old Church of the East; and Bishop Athanasios Toma Dawud from the Syrian Orthodox Church in Great Britain.
Such an alleged widespread participation of the church comes against a background in which it is common in Iraq, in which local leadership is often missing and is classified as not trustworthy so that the church leaders take over a prominent roles in local communities, as reference points to a governor or mayor for cities or regional areas and therefore have a work relationship with everyone.
Saleem has accused Warda in particular on behalf of Hanna by a bribery money to the Prime Minister, and she also claims that she was personally under pressure by Warda to drop her complaint against Hannas.
On February 13, her right-wing team submitted a lawsuit in Virginia against the Iraqi judge Faiq Zidan, Warda and a number of high-ranking government officials as part of the United States' anti-terrorist and torture sacrifice and accused them of “brutal extortion, kidnapping, torture and attempted murder”.
Most of their claims against Warda are eraid; However, Saleem has announced a number of stock exchanges with Warda on Whatsapp in March 2023, what core Has seen, should she put pressure on her legal complaint.
She said Warda contacted her because of her attempts to reach a settlement with the Hanna brothers before they were convicted. After a phone call, she sent him a copy of a settlement proposal, which he then forwarded to the brothers.
In response, Warda sent her an audio grade in which he advises her to remove from the department proposal from the section, in which it was claimed that Hannas had acted on the loan without her knowledge.
“It is my impression that this is an exaggeration,” he said in the audio message and added that he thought “[your] Claims that a sum of money was withdrawn in their name and that they did not know what was going on, ”was also used against them.
Saleem claims that this is a veiled attempt by Warda to water down her complaint. An instinct that she said of a subsequent telephone conversation, in which she felt under pressure from Warda, to be satisfied with less money.
In her complaint in a court submitted in Virginia Court this year of February 13, 2025, Warda belongs to the people who sued them because they “maintain” worldwide networks of trade and smuggling in the USA “.
Saleems Inclusion of Warda in her lawsuit takes place in the middle of the continued tensions in the Chaldean Catholic Church, the largest of the various Christian communities of Iraq.
In the past, Warda has asked questions to his connections to political elites such as Rayan al-Kildani, the leader of an Iranian-financed militia of Babylon Brigades, and her political wing, the Babylon movement party.
Al-Kildani, who was sanctioned by the US government for human rights violations in 2019, is a Chaldean Catholic who has accused Al-Kildani of the sectarian warmth with the Chaldean patriarch Louis Raphael Sako. Sako has accused Warda of having made friends with Al-Kildani, increasing his profile and status.
In the middle of a heated persistent back and forth between the two, Warda has published various statements that have withdrawn Al-Kildani, which leads to a growing feud between Warda and Sako, while the latter is preparing for retirement, and Warda is seen as a favorite to take his place as a patriarch.
The tension between Sako and Warda reported reportedly Sako in office, and he refused to withdraw because the inner departments in the Chaldean church continue to do.
While his feud continues to have an impact, Warda now looks up the additional pressure of a federal law and increasingly increases questions about his relationships when the Chaldean church has difficulty planning a vision for its future in Iraq.
A knowledgeable source near the Archdiocese denied the allegations against Warda and described the indictment as “nonsensical inventions”.
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Photo: Chalden Archbishop Bashar Warda by Erbil. (Credit: Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil.)
