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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Two residents of the Kurdistan Region capital of Erbil have been charged with bribing an American military official in the city, the US Department of Justice said on Friday.
Mark Alan Fryday, 37, and Lara Jumaah Mohammed, 30, owned a company in Erbil which was trying to win contracts with the US Army in the city, to supply them with goods and services.
Fryday and Mohammed “allegedly offered to pay an Army contracting official a kickback equivalent to 20 percent of the value of any contract that he awarded to their companies,” according to the Department of Justice statement.
The two also “allegedly offered an upfront cash payment in exchange for the award of a contract to supply equipment that was due to be awarded in late March 2020.”
"They were charged in an indictment filed in the District of Columbia with one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery of a public official,” according to the statement.
The bribery charges are part of “ongoing efforts to combat corruption and fraud in contracting on U.S. military installations overseas.”
While proposing the bribe, Mohammed told the US official that "[E]veryone here, they are doing like this way." She offered 20 percent of the contract value, but the official proposed a flat $4,000 bribe and the payment of half of it up front – to which she agreed, according to the indictment.
There has not yet been a statement from the US Army presence in Erbil regarding the case.
The US increased its presence in Erbil in 2014, after the Islamic State (ISIS) took control of the nearby city of Mosul, as well as parts of Kirkuk. The group pressed towards Erbil, but were beaten back by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and support provided by the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
“This alleged bribery and kickback scheme sought to undermine the efforts of the Department of Defense to lawfully contract overseas,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt was quoted in Friday’s statement as saying.
However, the department clarified that the indictment is “merely an accusation”, and both individuals are “presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
In March of this year, a contract linguist at the US Special Operations Task Force in Erbil, was charged with espionage by a Washington court.
Mariam Taha Thompson was accused of sharing the names and personal information of informants in Iraq, as well as other classified information, with a Lebanese national affiliated with a US-designated terrorist organization. She was arrested by FBI special agents on the US Special Operations base in Erbil on February 27.
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