Iraq bank’s ex-chief denies all graft charges

The ex-chief of Iraq’s central bank has dismissed charges against him as baseless in an interview and said authorities had compromised the bank’s independence to access its reserves. Sinan Al Shabibi said the government had been “spoiled” by a stable exchange rate for several years, and a warrant for his arrest for suspected mismanagement of the Central Bank of Iraq and currency manipulation had blown relatively minor foreign exchange fluctuations out of proportion. Shabibi’s remarks come weeks after he was replaced as governor while overseas and warrants were issued for his arrest and those of other bank officials in what diplomats and analysts have interpreted as a power grab by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki. The premier’s office has insisted it was not behind the moves. “Since 2009, they wanted to fire me, and they wanted money from the reserves,” Shabibi said in a telephone interview from Geneva. “I think the main problem... is basically the reserves, because they thought we have a lot of reserves, and they want to use it for financing.” He added: “The government wanted some money from the central bank... Of course, the law does not allow that, the central bank law.” “And of course, they say that there are differences in exchange rate policy. I don’t think these differences require firing the central bank governor.” Asked if the warrants for him and other officials affected the bank’s independence, Shabibi replied: “I’m sure, yes.” He declined to name any government official directly, but said: “They always have been talking about the fact that they should supervise the monetary policy, they should actually decide on many, many, many components of that policy, all these things.”